KPO is starting to get very exciting
by Kim Dunkason – founder KPO Insights.com

The Global KPO industry is expected to expand significantly in the next two years with Evalueserve estimating it will grow to $17bn by 2014 - that is an average annual rate of around 24%.

This is a young industry that is still maturing and developing and it’s at a very exciting stage. Organisations are now looking for KPO professionals who can add value to their business, drive innovation and enable them to achieve their strategic objectives. They want people who have a good understanding of their business and the industry in which they compete.

In addition to this there is also recognition that managing the relationship with the outsourcing vendor requires a specific skill set. The likelihood is that we will see an increased use of professionals who have the appropriate skills and recognized certification being used.

Companies want to see a positive impact on their gross margins and this is leading to outsourcing relationships moving from being transactional to transformational.

People working within KPO are highly educated, they may well be qualified in engineering, medicine, management, accountancy, law or teaching. They will have specific domain knowledge, along with problem solving and analytical skills.

Your organization may already be a user of outsourcing or maybe they are considering it, KPO vendors offer a range of solutions to various industry segments such as FMCG.

If you then link outsourcing to the explosion of Big Data and the fact that a recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute found that America would need 140,000 to 190,000 more workers with “deep analytical” expertise and 1.5 million more data-literate managers, whether retrained or hired to deal with this explosion of data. In addition to the fact that they also estimated that a retailer embracing big data has the potential to increase its operating margin by more than 60%, then we can see that the use of big data will become a key basis of competition and growth.

So utilizing the skills of KPO professionals could offer access to people with the right skill sets and flexibility. The Mckinsey report goes on to ask – ‘could a company’s access to, and ability to analyse data potentially confer more value than a brand?’

There is no doubt that decisions will increasingly be based on data and analysis rather than on experience and intuition.

My name is Kim Dunkason and I have been working in the KPO industry for the last 4 years I’ve made a lot of friends during this time who share my passion for this industry and I know together we can make a difference; it’s a new and exciting area.

This is why I have just launched www.kpo-insights.com it’s a site for people who are currently working within Knowledge Process Outsourcing / Off Shoring and those people maybe just entering this field. If your company has just announced it is about to Off Shore / Outsource and you are wondering how all of this is about to change your way of working, then this site can offer you some great support and insight.

It can help if you suddenly find yourself responsible for the outsourcing / off shoring relationship in your company as most people usually have little, if any, experience or training to equip them for this new role, they have no experience in how to analyse and resolve issues that inevitably arise and there is probably limited information on how the relationship will be managed on a day to day basis.

Add to this a lack of clarity on who does what in this new relationship. So for example what functions / tasks will be retained by the customer and which ones will be completed by the new supplier, along with employees wanting to retain tasks which they prefer or assume they should be doing and you start to see just a few of the challenges.

No matter what stage of the journey you are on, come and join in. The site also provides support in terms of focus groups, training, coaching, access to the latest news and information, articles written by industry experts, along with details on skill sets required for this type of work, a monthly newsletter and of course a little fun!

You will also get the opportunity to network with others working within the industry, read articles by people talking about their careers, providing a glimpse into their industries, countries, real life experiences and learning’s.

I personally invite you to come and be part of this new venture with me, let’s make a difference together and I would welcome your feedback on how you want the site to develop to ensure it is ‘fit for purpose!’

Hope to see you soon on KPO Insights
Kim Dunkason, Founder of KPO Insights.com

Date published: June 2012