I notice I mentioned Cognizant in my last blog. Without meaning to start mentioning them every day, I just want to recount a few comments made when I had a chat to Martin Kochman today. Martin is the head of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operations for Cognizant in Europe and we had a chat on the phone earlier about some of the changes in the BPO sector.
What was particularly interesting were some of his views on the hard times faced by many companies as we head into recession. Martin remains very positive about the business outlook for the BPO sector as a whole. He said: “I still think that the total size of the market is growing, but we may see a slowing in the rate at which earlier growth targets are met. The fundamentals are still in place for this to be a significant market.”
He added: “Cost reduction will always drive some activity, but the boundaries between what organisations have considered ‘outsourcable’ will continue to be pushed and more is going to come into the realms of outsourced contracts.”
Martin clearly believes that the retained organisation is going to shrink. This implies that as times get harder, companies may even be exploring the outsourcing option even more than usual. In summary, Martin thinks it’s going to be a busy time for companies in IT and BPO services: “The market will grow. On the demand side there is more global recognition of the skills and standards required and so things like Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) are becoming easier to package up and deliver remotely.”
Source from: Markkobayashihillary.computing.co.uk/2008/11/how-far-can-out.html
