"Domain expertise is the key"
Nov 17, 2008 1559 hrs IST

India has become an economically viable destination for outsourcing. International Association of Outsourcing Professional (IAOP) offers certifications for professionals in the outsourcing industry. Jagdish Dalal director of IAOP, in an interaction with Prabhu Ram, discusses the advantages of India as compared to other countries and their initiatives in India

How organized is the outsourcing industry in India?

NASSCOM does a very good job of "marketing" India and Indian services and there are enough large service providers who manage the market in order to create confidence worldwide. The presence of some of the large Indian companies on the foreign Stock Exchanges also add credibility to the industry as a whole (versus in China, where there is only one small Chinese company on the U.S. stock exchange).

How can certification be a measuring yardstick in business process outsourcing?

The certification in BPO deals with domain (i.e. NASDAQ certification for financial transactions, TPA for insurance, etc.) knowledge and expertise. This is a critical dimension for the success of a BPO. Without the domain expertise, BPO companies will struggle against their U.S. and European counterparts.

Individuals from Intel Information Technology, Time Customer Service, Unisys Global Services and NeoIT are among professionals who have received the COP certification. Two of the Infosys founders earned the COP designation and are also in IAOP's Hall of Fame -- N.R. Narayana Murthy and Nandan M. Nilekani.

What are benefits you see with your certification tie ups to academic institutions?
IAOP promotes outsourcing as a "profession" and an academic institution is always at the base of a profession (engineering, accounting, etc). We have found that most academic institutions may only address outsourcing as a topic but do not focus on it as a life cycle profession. The COP program and IAOP's Master Class provides outsourcing customers, providers and advisors with an intensive learning experience on the latest end-to-end processes for outsourcing success. We also are working with academic institutions and training partners through our COP Bridge Program, where IAOP counts certain qualifying points from accepted courses toward the education credits needed for COP certification.
Which country apart from India, have responded positively for certification in out sourcing?

With courses being held all over the world, the COP Program is truly global. COPs represent countries such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, and of course the United States. With the growth of the program we expect the number of COPs from Europe, Asia, the Americas to increase exponentially.