There is no denying the fact that India has been able to position itself as one of the big league players in the BPO world. The BPO and outsourcing story has been a resounding success for India. However, several other countries are emerging as a favourable destination, primarily because every one wants their share of the outsourcing pie.

It has therefore become imperative for India to constantly evolve and improve to maintain its position as a value player and the primary destination for outsourcers. Towards that aim, the Confereration of Indian Industry (CII) is preparing to launch a stream of innovative initiatives along with its affiliate association ‘”Call Centre Association of India (CCAI)” aimed at taking the BPO success in India to newer heights.

Topping the list of initiatives that CII – CCAI are launching is a Secialized Training and Certification programme called “eKaliber” is being formally launched on the 2nd of September at the Round Table on “HR issues facing the BPO Industry”.

As is very well known the BPO success in India is because of the large pool of educated English-speaking population. The vision is to bring about suitable changes in our vocational education and take this to every nook and corner of the country to create a much larger workforce to make this BPO success phenomenon a norm for the decade ahead. CII and the CCAI are launching the eKaliber initiative along with City & Guilds, a premier global organization specializing in the field of vocational qualification and certification. City & Guilds has developed a Curriculum, which has been endorsed by CII and CCAI - aimed at preparing final year school children to be successes in the BPO Sector.

The advantages to the Industry would be enormous - providing a uniform scaled base to choose from cost savings, predictability of success of campaigns and many more.

The CCAI which is re-christening itself as BPIAI or Business Process Industry Association of India to represent a wider base of organizations active in the BPO Sector in India, has become an Associate Member of the CII in May this year and we are really excited about working together in an industry which is growing at an impressive rate of over 40% per year” says Sam Chopra, President of the CCAI.

Earlier this month, a delegation of the CCAI met with Mr. Bhoopinder Hooda, CM Haryana and Mr. Ajay Maken, MP, and apprised them with the initiatives that the CCAI had undertaken to foster sustained growth of the BPO Industry - including vocationalization and chalking a career path for the BPO workforce, and Data Security amongst others.

Mr Ravi Pillai, Country Head City and Guilds (South Asia) informed that CII and City and Guilds are addressing the issue of training and certification of the work force in different areas of work through the CII’s Skill Development Initiative, which has already been launched a year ago. For the current demand supply gap situation in the BPO sector, the industry will have to impose a self discipline and make sure that they hire only duly certified candidates – till certification becomes a norm. Interested candidates seeking careers in this area will then themselves undertake the certification program, as is in any other profession.