Hence, there’s tremendous potential for both research KPO and legal KPO to grow.

Q: Your opinion on the Indian KPO market.
A: India is a good base for an outsourcing destination; however the business largely comes from the USA and UK markets. MNCs having India operations are using KPO services, but haven’t really taken off for India-focused businesses. In terms of an offshoring destination, India has been doing extremely well and is one of the best.

Q: What kind of challenges did you face in the domestic market?
A: There are several challenges that India poses as an offshoring destination for KPO services. While India has a huge availability of good raw talent, they need to be trained to meet the demand sophisticated customers. Our training academy provides both technical (client-specific) and behavioral training to employees. India, sometimes, fails to match the customer expectation when it comes to english language sophistication. Some clients are more comfortable in dealing with people from delivery centers in their geography than from India. Infrastructure or political issues in India also affect the ability to deliver services.

Q: There’s been a legacy of outsourcing and offshoring in India now. It started out with the IT industry and then emerged the BPO and then subsequently KPO. How do you see India positioned to take on this fast change?
A: With the growth of IT services and BPO industry, India has proved itself as a very fertile global outsourcing destination. The ability to deliver service at international standards has also matured over a period of time. KPO and LPO industries in India have benefitted from the mainstream IT services and BPO industry experience. While India is now well-positioned to take on the third wave of outsourcing, it is important for players to invest in people, processes and technology and enhance their capabilities to be really be able to tap the billion dollars of opportunity there.

Q: How has the economic downturn affected the KPO industry and Integreon?
A: In the beginning, the downturn did have an impact on some of Integreon’s businesses. But soon after, Integreon saw increased volume of business (since Jan 2009). The customers faced tremendous pricing pressure and they found it strategically viable to offshore higher volumes of work to a trusted third party player to increase productivity. This helped reduce Integreon’s sales cycle. Integreon’s fast growth in 2009 can be attributed to the fact that they are closing at a revenue run rate of USD 100 mn FY 09 (Jan – Dec 09) from having closed at USD 35 mn in FY 08.

Moreover, we don’t have more than 10 percent revenue dependency on any single client and revenue and cost is incurred in different currencies. This acts as a stabilizing factor against currency fluctuations and also helps us even out the impact of downturn on our business. Also, our customers are from different industry verticals.

Most importantly, law firms, investment banks and large corporations increasingly outsourced more complex and high-end work. The driving factor was not only the pricing pressures but the need to get the work done in a more efficient, productive and cost-effective mannerIntegreon has garnered the credibility of the customers in these verticals and has won a fair share of the business even in 2009In fact, we signed some of the largest deals in the industry this yearThe notable ones are the deal with a leading law firm, Osborne Clarke worth USD 75 mn and the deal with a leading investment bank wherein 100 percent of the investment research function was outsourced to Integreon

With two acquisitions this year, we have expanded both in terms of geography and capability