The BPO market in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan (APEJ) will grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 11.2% and grow from $17 billion in 2008 to $29 billion in 2013 according to a new study by global market intelligence firm IDC.

IDC has projected that ongoing investments by Asia-Pacific companies in business transformation will spur long-term growth for the region's business process outsourcing (BPO) market from next year.

India is also positioned to achieve 17% growth between 2009 and 2010, given the strong domestic demand especially from the telecoms sector and mainstream uptake of BPO services.

Suchitra Narayan, IDC's research manager for Asia-Pacific IT services research, noted that the current economic downturn is playing a part in the accelerated adoption of BPO, and in particular, platform BPO. Platform BPO typically refers to business processing services based on a vertical or horizontal technology platform.

"The value-add brought by platform BPO such as standardization, scalability, economies of scale and pay-as-you-use functionalities are areas that fit well in the CFO's agenda in today's market," explained Narayan. "We are seeing an increasing demand for BPO vendors that are able to go the extra mile and transform businesses as well as contribute to growth as opposed to traditional models."