The entry of countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia into the call centre arena is likely to pose competition to the Indian call centre firms over the next few years. The way to beat competition is for India to focus on providing quality and value adds.

The questions that need to be answered by the industry:

   1. Is the Indian call centre segment, in particular the mom-n-pop centres, geared up to achieve
      quality of productivity?

   2. Besides proficiency of the English language, what are the value-added services that can be
       provided by Indian contact centres?

   3. Is the Government of India doing enough to expedite reforms in the Telecom Infrastructure
      area?

The Government needs to recognise the call centre industry as more than an IT-enabled service and provide necessary support mechanism, to ensure that the industry attains sustained growth. India can sustain its competitive edge only by a stress on quality. 24/7 Customer.com is among the few companies that have received COPC-2000 certification for its voice operations. Indian companies need to adopt quality as a benchmark. Interestingly five Indian contact centre firms have applied for COPC-2000 standard certification. The standard comprises four categories across performance measurement, processes, planning and leadership and people. Irrespective of the size, call centre firms should gear up to implement quality standards within their organisational framework, as COPC-compliancy is likely to become mandatory over the next few years.