Demand for non-English speakers | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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Demand for non-English speakers

PTI | By, New Delhi
Jun 01, 2008 04:47 PM IST

With a large number of companies from non-English speaking countries eyeing India for outsourcing work, BPOs and KPOs here have started hunting for people proficient in foreign languages to support the clientele.

With a large number of companies from non-English speaking European countries eyeing India for outsourcing work, BPOs and KPOs here have started hunting for people proficient in Spanish, German, French and other foreign languages to support the clientele.

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"The Indian BPO companies are now looking towards non-English speaking markets such as Eastern Europe and other countries to tap the potential in these unexplored terrains. Thus they need to provide native language support in French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Italian and so on," Saurabh Gupta, Research Director, Everest Research Institute told PTI.

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Currently, various third party BPOs and KPOs such as vCustomer, Patni, SmartCube are providing services in multiple languages.

"Clients today want standardised and seamless customer experience for their customers. So, be it a customer calling from China, US, Europe, companies today wants that their customers should get same experience and service quality," Patni BPO Senior Vice President and Head Sanjiv Kapur said.

Patni currently have a multi-lingual support team of 50 people supporting clients in Japanese, French, Korean, Mandarin, German, Italian, and Spanish, Mandarin Korean.

However, currently there are very few outsourcing companies providing multi-lingual services in India, Navin Joshua, Executive Director, vCustomer Corporation said.

The growth is primarily driven by the existing clients who wants a one stop solution, he said adding even for the US market, some existing clients are looking for Spanish-language support services.

VCustomer has a team of 50 language experts who offers services in various foreign languages.

Recognising the potential that exists, there is now a trend within the Indian ITES-BPO industry to address other foreign languages as well, said Sameer Walia, Managing Director Smart Cube, a KPO firm which specialises in delivering High Value and Customised Business Research and Analysis.

Most of the large players will need to expand their offering to include multi-lingual activities, so as to meet the needs of their existing customers, he added.

Talking about remunerations, Joshua said that depending on experience and merit, a language expert's salary premium could be anywhere between 25 per cent to 40 per cent over their English speaking counterparts.

"Typically, a language profile may just mean a translation job. But at Patni BPO, foreign language professionals get a profile that involves technical support and language both," Kapoor added.

While the BPOs prefer recruiting a language graduate, other skills are priority for a KPO.

The KPOs prefer recruiting natives or a person with Masters degree in the language, Smart Cube added.

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