Weak greenback a big hurdle: Raman Roy

The weak dollar is proving to be a major challenge for the BPO industry, said Raman Roy, chairman and managing director, Wipro Spectramind.

Addressing Infocom 2004, Roy said that while the US dollar getting weaker is good for the Indian economy, it was terrible for the industry.

"It means less rupees for dollars," he said. Moreover, the problem is even more acute as the 90 per cent of the BPO business comes from the US.

Weak dollar apart, the BPO industry is facing pricing pressure, which is one of the most prominent industry level challenge. "As an industry we are out to kill each other," he said.

Among the other challenges facing the industry are high attrition. Roy said, "We need leadership to take on challenges," he said.

Commenting on Wipro Spectramind, Roy said, the company is likely to clock revenues of Rs 650 crore (Rs 6.5 billion) in its fifth year of operation. In the last quarter, Wipro Spectramind registered revenues of $36.6 million.

Roy spoke about the tremendous growth of the organisation and said that in four and a half years of operations, the company has an employee strength of 14,000.

Wipro Spectramind has presence in seven locations and handles around 4.5 million customer interactions every month.

Joseph W Duffy, global leader-technology, security and privacy services, PricewaterhouseCoopers, spoke about the key factors in becoming a trusted outsourcing destination.

He said that the main issues were governance, operational criteria, compliance and risk management.