The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has permitted domestic call centres to use the integrated services digital network for the back-up leased line. This will give redundancy to call centre operations.

Earlier, this was not allowed and call centres had to depend on just one ILD facility. For a back-up, call centres could not afford to buy another line, given the steep licence fee.

In another change, the DoT has allowed standalone domestic telemarketing centres, without any leased-line connectivity, to make out-going calls without giving bank guarantees.

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India’s banking system is undergoing a major metamorphosis with the commencement of the much-delayed RTGS (real time gross settlement) Once fully operationalised, RTGS would substantially reduce the time taken to transfer money from one place to another. Today, it takes anything up to three days for a clearing cheque drawn on another bank in the same centre to be cleared, while cheques drawn on out-station branches of another bank could take 3 to 4 weeks to clear. Businesses, in particular, pay a heavy price for the delay. Today it is possible to transfer money from one branch to another branch of the same bank instantaneously, in the case of the new private sector banks and foreign banks that have all their branches on a common network. Also it is possible only when funds have to be transferred between branches of the same bank, not when it involves a transfer between different banks.

The RTGS system initiated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) links all or most branches of all banks on a real time basis electronically, allowing funds to be transferred across banks and branches instantaneously. To begin with the system will be limited only to inter-bank transactions among four banks — State Bank of India, Standard Chartered, HDFC and Saraswat Bank. But it is only a question of time before it encompasses all banks and all transactions.

BPO units specialising in market research (MR) are a relatively new, but high-growth, section of the BPO business. This segment has two kinds of players - global MR agencies that have opened centres in India and other players that have market research outsourcing as only one of their activities.

Companies operating in this segment include WNS, Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS), Ugam Solutions, Symphony, MarketRX, Millward Brown and Evalueserve. Industry estimates of the size of this segment are between $5-20mn. It is expected to grow by 100-150% next year; much higher than the 50-60% growth rate expected for the rest of the industry. This number is also high when compared to the 10% annual growth experienced by the $ 66 mn domestic MR industry.

WNS, Ugam Solutions and Symphony are global companies that have set up centres in India to carry out, among other things, BPO-related activities in market research. Another such firm is Evalueserve, which started about four years ago. None of these companies are engaged exclusively in MR-related BPO activities.

Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS), a leading MR company, set up a local BPO outfit about three years ago and is one of the few leading MR agencies to do so. MarketRX, a firm specialising in MR activity with pharmaceuticals as its main vertical, has also started operations less than a year ago in India. MR agencies such as ACN, Synovate and IRI are also starting operations in India.