E18 is all set to organize the BPO India Forum 2008 in New Delhi and Mumbai. The forum will bring together stalwarts of the BPO industry to discuss the current issues and future growth scenario of the $10.9 billion worth BPO sector. The forum is scheduled to take place in New Delhi on 12th August at Hotel Shangri-la and on 14th August in Mumbai at ITC Grand Maratha.

The Forum is presented by Aspect Software, the world's largest company focused on unified communications for the contact center in association with CNBC TV18 BT and IBM are the Gold sponsors.

Over the years India has been one of the hottest destinations for any company which wants to outsource its business processes. With the Indian BPO industry striking a turnover of around $10.9 billion in March 2008 the sector has surely emerged as a winner. Despite this mounting growth experts foresee that the industry's strain systems and governance processes would need time to mature and to be institutionalised. What is seen is the challenges that this sector may be facing could be due to the appreciating rupee, rising wage inflation, emergence of new low-cost countries as competitors, increase in infrastructure and facilities costs.

Keeping this changing economic scenario in mind many players are looking towards exploring smaller cities as these cities promise a steady supply of talent and far lower real estate and other establishment costs. The forum will also discuss the challenges on the front of growing technological requirements and Human Resource issues.

Commenting on this update, Mr. Farhad Wadia, CEO of E18 said " India's BPO industry is expanding at a phenomenal pace and its growth graph indicates a five-fold growth in revenues to $50 billion by 2012. Keeping this in mind E18 decided to create a mega industry platform to focus on India being one of world's more favored BPO destinations and on the IT and HR issues faced by this industry with the best solutions for it."

Shalini Ale /ITvoir network