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Knowledge Process Outsourcing – Facts of Interest

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Knowledge Process Outsourcing – Facts of Interest
 
KPO
KPO means knowledge process outsourcing and is a more sophisticated type of BPO.  KPO generally refers to accounting, legal, software, and outsourcing that involves research and good analytical skills.
 
History of BPO & KPO
The history of the Business Process Outsourcing industry dates back to the 1980’s when a handful of European airlines started using Delhi as a location for their back office operations.   Later, American Express consolidated its Japan and Asia Pacific back office operations also to Delhi and the NCR region (which is near Delhi).  In the 1990’s, General Electric was next to follow suit and start back office operations in Gurgaon, which is a satellite city of Delhi.  These initial BPO operations were done using a business model that consisted of parent companies and “captives” which are companies that have an exclusive relationship with the parent company.  Independent BPO operations didn’t start until the 1990’s although the industry didn’t have much strength until after 2000.
 
IT outsourcing
In 2002, all major Indian software companies were involved in the BPO industry including Infosys, Inforlinx, HCL, Stayam, and Patni..  Spectramind was bought by Wipro, and the team that started Specramind, created Quatrro in 2006.  Daksh got bought by IBM, and MphasiS was acquired by EDS.  Accenture, IBM, Hewlett Parkard and Dell, Convergys and Sitel also created venues in India which created a lot of high paying jobs.  These new high paying jobs in India are the reason why the phenonimon of the reverse brain drain from America to India started accelerating from 2004-2009.
 
KPO Services
Investment research, Business research, Data Analytics, Market research, Valuation, Legal research are the main core of what are considered to be specialties in the KPO business.  IT, Software, and Web services can also be considered to be KPO services, although research oriented jobs better reflect how many think of KPOs. LPO means legal process outsourcing which includes a wide variety of legal back office services.  An LPO is a type of KPO as well.  The distinctions between the various outsourcing terms can get blurry, and terms can have definitions that overlap with other related terms as well.  Putting distinctions aside, KPO is a dream come true for India, where they can get a nice market share of higher paying skilled labor and have evolved past the stage of only getting grunt work and software labor.
 
Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Research
Indian companies are now engaged in more and more biotechnology, and pharmaceutical analytical work. This is one of India’s most rapidly growing industries in the KPO sector. Israel is also very prominent in KPO as they have many companies who are very advanced in medical research.
 
Where are KPO’s typically located?
To run successful KPO companies, you need a good skilled labor pool.  India dominates roughly 70% of the world KPO market, and each metro in India has a different focus. Delhi is more oriented towards legal, accounting, and call center work.  Bombay is more oriented towards business.  Hyderabad and  Chennai gravitate towards IT, Data, and Transcriptions, while Bangalore is India’s hub for any type of highly skilled technical or analytical work.  Bangalore has the highest amount of highly skilled workers of any Indian metro and the majority of higher paying KPO jobs are in Bangalore.  Visit our Bangalore KPO page to see search results for KPO companies in Bangalore.

Tweets:
(1) KPO means knowledge process outsourcing and is a more sophisticated type of BPO.
(2) KPO generally refers to accounting, legal, software & outsourcing that involves research and good analytical skills.
(3) The HISTORY of KPO, BPO, and LPO
(4) Looking at a long list of KPO services, what defines them as KPO vs. BPO services?
(5) How do you distinguish what would be classified as a KPO vs. a BPO service?
(6) India dominates roughly 70% of the world KPO market, and each metro in India has a different focus.

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