BPO handbook launched
The launch of the book "BPO & Sourcing Dictionary" at the Dialog
Auditorium on April 26 was welcoming news to all who are and will be
involved in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry in Sri
Lanka.
Ajith Dandeniya hands over BPO Handbook to Mohan Pandithage
(Chairman, Hayleys Group) |
BPO globally is in the ascendancy and is a multi-billion US dollar
industry. India has already captured a larger share of this market with
its early mover advantage and through their vision in advance on
resource capacity building programs. Today, India's BPO earnings are in
the range of around 14 Billion US dollars and growing steadily.
Sri Lanka BPO industry in comparison to India is a mere novice and
are looking to grab a small share of this growing and lucrative market.
Sri Lanka as a preferred outsourcing destination is slowly but surely is
looking to gather momentum. The evidence is clear.
A T Kearney in its recent Global Services Locations Index (GLSI)
ranked Sri Lanka as 21st. It also ranked Sri Lanka as the 5th in terms
of financial attractiveness ahead of countries such as India and China.
Gartner announced Sri Lanka within the top 30 outsourcing destinations
in the world amongst which Sri Lanka was ranked 9th within the Asia
Pacific countries.
A recent IBM survey ranked Sri Lanka as 12th in the top ranking
destinations in their global locations trends report. The Global
Services magazine that performs annual outsourcing industry analysis
globally has ranked Sri Lanka amongst the top 10 emerging global
destinations.
The vision of SLASSCOM (Sri Lankan Association of Software & Service
Companies), the over-arching body that acts as the catalyst to grow the
Sri Lankan IT & BPO industry is to become a 1 billion US dollar earner
by 2015.
To this affect, one of the key obstacles that Sri Lanka needs to
overcome is building of the Human Resource Capability to take on the BPO
related work ("Capacity Building Programme"). A book such as the "BPO &
Sourcing Dictionary" is aninvaluable learning aid to accelerate this
process further.
It is a handbook that must be given to every single employee by the
BPO companies HR & learning divisions, so that it provides enhanced
knowledge to existing employees in the BPO industry to further in terms
of understanding the industry specific link language.
The book will also be a great asset to students who are looking to
embrace a career path in this lucrative industry. As part of their
learning process of the BPO industry, they will now have the ability to
learn the related "lingo", so that their initiation to this industry
could become somewhat seamless.
This kind of learning aid not only supports the supplier side of the
outsourcing industry, and is a great knowledge source for the clients
who are looking to set-up their own Shared Service Centers (SSC) or
looking to outsource their non-core processes either locally or
internationally to a third party outsourcing supplier.
The employees involved in this process will be able to understand the
various industry related "jargon" used when communicating with the
suppliers.
This book also carries valuable outsourcing contract terminology and
their definitions, which would be of extreme use for Managers dealing at
contractual levels both on Supplier and client sides.
It is in essence a handbook that has been catered for everyone
involved in the outsourcing industry, all executives and non-executives
alike.
It has catered for a gap in the market and extremely well put
together in terms of both content (Alphabetical order of definitions
with ease of finding as well as simply worded "laymen" definitions) and
the "look & feel" (in terms of its pocket-size with ease of carry and
non-intrusive nature).
It is the first of its kind, with over 850 definitions related to BPO,
Sourcing and Outsourcing Contractual level definitions in a single
collection of printed publication. It has already attracted various
interests from international book sellers to market the product both via
the web and in their respective book stores.
The author of this handbook is a Sri Lankan, IT & BPO Professional
and a business writer to various local and international magazines.
Ajith Dandeniya is a regular contributor to LMD (Lanka Monthly
Digest) on BPO related activity. Ajith as the Vice President of IT and
Projects was instrumental in setting up one of the largest BPO's in Sri
Lanka back in 2004. The BPO Center of global outsourcer WNS was set-up
in Sri Lanka in 2004 to cater for AVIVA insurance and today has over 250
F&A (Finance and Accounting) staffs providing outsourcing services.
Subsequently Ajith worked internationally with various outsourcing
clients on a freelance basis, advising them on their outsourcing
strategies and transition related activities.
"Back in the days when I first moved in to outsourcing, had I come
across a compilation such as this, it would have helped me ease in to my
BPO role immensely" he says. "We learnt on the job as we dealt with the
client and built-up the related vocabulary as we went along". Ajith says
that this is what inspired him to put this book together. "The idea of
putting such a collection of definitions was born back in 2004 and 8
years later, I have finally been able to convert this vision in to
reality".
Ajith Dandeniya's BPO experience to put together such a collection of
BPO definitions has been well rounded.
"I was fortunate enough to not spend time in the BPO industry on the
supplier side alone, but was subsequently able to spend time on the
client side also. Therefore, I was able to fathom the psyche of how it
works from either side of the fence on outsourcing scenarios. I was able
to understand the expectations from both client and the supplier. Some
of the definitions in the book reflect this".
Why a launch of such a book in Sri Lanka? Ajith says "As a Sri
Lankan, I owe it to launch it in my own country and help the "Capacity
Building Programme" that has been initiated by SLASSCOM. Beyond that I
will look to market the book in other countries too".
Ajith Dandeniya is currently the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for
Hayleys Group. He has over 25 years industry experience gained globally
that includes the 8 years BPO experience. He has a 1st class honours
degree and a MBA from UK, where he was the prize winner for MBA of the
year in 2006.
Ajith says that "I wish the reader the best in gaining BPO industry
terminology knowledge and hopefully this publication will play some part
in ramping up our BPO knowledgeable workforce in the country and thus
accelerating the growth of our country as a preferred BPO supplier in
the world".
The book "BPO & Sourcing Dictionary" will now be available in most
book shops in Sri Lanka (distributed by Vijitha Yapa) as well as through
[email protected] by specifying order quantity, contact details
and delivery address(for cash on delivery basis). At a cost of GBP £
4.99 it is an essential and worthwhile investment. |