In this age of competition, nothing is more essential than increasing competence at the managerial level. Bangalore-based OnTrac represents a pioneering effort at increasing competence of mid-level managers in the BPO (business process outsourcing) industry.

OnTrac is India's first company that provides operations-oriented training and certification programmes for mid-level operations managers in the BPO industry.

In an e-mail interview with Senior Associate Editor (Features) Indrani Roy Mitra, the company's director Ravi Venkatesam throws light on his company's modus operandi, people it trains and also on the future of the Indian BPO industry.

What led to OnTrac's inception?

The BPO industry is growing at a tremendous pace in India. This growth, while desirable, brings about numerous challenges that the industry needs to address. Key among them is the challenge of upgrading abilities of the young and mid-level managers.

OnTrac addresses this specific need of companies. Its training and certification programmes for team leaders and managers have been successfully implemented in many companies across India.

What kind of trainings does OnTrac offer?

The courses that OnTrac offers include:

• The OnTrac star certification programme for team leaders;
• The OnTrac manager's DNA programme for operations managers; and
• The OnTrac Xcelerate programme for senior frontline staff.

This apart, OnTrac offers custom training programmes for companies in various areas, including leadership, business communication etc.

Tell us all about OnTrac differentiators.

OnTrac offers unique facilities and training courses, which make it stand out among its competitors. Its other significant features are:

• It is the only company in India focussed on operations management training for mid-level managers in the BPO industry
• The company's founders are operations professionals from the BPO industry
• All trainers in OnTrac are former operations managers from various bluechip BPO companies
• Over 10% of all team leaders in India are trained by OnTrac.
• Over 1/3^rd of Nasscom's top companies are its clients.

Whom does OnTrac train and how?

OnTrac trains team leaders, operations managers and senior frontline staff in the BPO industry in operations. Training programmes for each level is conducted differently, as given below:

Team leaders' programme: The Star certification programme for team leaders is conducted in multiple phases, which include classroom sessions and on-job implementation of learnings. The entire process lasts for about nine weeks.

Operations managers' programme: The manager's DNA programme is a three-day offsite workshop for operations' managers.

Senior frontline staff training: The Xcelerate program for senior frontline staff is a one-year initiative. This programme helps companies retain their senior frontline staff by providing them developmental opportunities for their next roles.

During this programme, participants are exposed to concepts with the help of class room training and real experience.

Please give us an overview of the training scenario among the BPO industry.

Training in the BPO industry occurs at three levels. These include:

1. Training for entry-level employees: Companies do a lot of training for entry-level employees to get them ready to handle work. This training primarily includes pre-process training and process training.

The latter are basic programmes that help employees do the job they have been hired for. Pre-process training programmes help new employees attain speed in generic areas like communication, customer services etc.

Apart from this, companies may conduct refresher/remedial training programmes for entry level employees. Some companies offer career enhancement training programmes like operations programme.  

2. Training for team leaders: Companies have started to spend money for the first line of managers (the team leaders) to prepare them for their managerial role. These include operations training programmes, leadership training programmes and something on team management.

3. Training for operations managers and other senior level people: Companies sometimes offer training programmes to their operations managers (and other senior level managers). These are in the areas of leadership and management.

How can the BPO industry solve the manpower crunch it is currently facing?

The manpower crunch is, in many ways, an opportunity for multiple stakeholders in India.

For example, BPOs offer millions of graduates chance to get good jobs. BPOs help training companies provide employable skills to the people and assist placement companies find the right candidates.

The BPOs, however, need to play a very proactive role. There are two routes they can choose to counter the manpower crunch:

• One way is to scale up their internal recruitment efforts (which many companies have chosen). This means they need to increase their reach to identify the right talent. Therefore, their investments in recruitment need to increase.

• The other way is for them to develop vendors who can scale up their requirements. In this method, BPOs work with vendors and assist them so that the vendors achieve large scales recruitment operations.
  
  This, in the long run, is a much better approach as it derisks the BPOs on the recruitment front (the vendors will assume the risk onto themselves). However, this is also an involved process and BPOs, as of now, have not shown much appetite in vendor development. (Vendor development is not new to the BPOs. They engaged in this activity during the early stages of the industry when they helped numerous pre-process training companies achieve scale.)

Tell us something about the new concept of knowledge process outsourcing.

Knowledge process outsourcing or KPO as it is known, is not really new. However, it is gaining prominence because of the ample media exposure. Most BPOs' work has a wide range as shown below:

Transaction Processing <-------------> Knowledge Processing

All processes on the left side (near to transaction processing) are typically characterised by low processing times, low turnaround times and higher repetitive nature. Examples include some types of voice-based processes, some simpler finance and accounting processes, et cetera.

The skills and experience required by people engaged in this work are usually graduation with good communication and documentation skills.

Work experience may not be required.

All processes on the right side (near knowledge processing) are typically characterised by unique jobs i.ee Every transaction which is handled could vary significantly form the previous transaction.

Therefore, the processing times and turnaround times are higher (e.g. It could take days or even months before a single transaction is complete). People engaged in such work requires to have deep domain knowledge in their fields. Examples include legal work, investment banking, engineering design etc. KPOs usually have a higher revenue per employee and they usually specialise in a two to three areas.

None of this is a new phenomenon. Many people in India have been engaged in dealing with higher-end knowledge processes for many years.

However, due to the 'flattening of the world', the talent in India is now being engaged to provide these services to the United States- and the United Kingdom-based companies.

What tips would you give to youngsters intending to join the BPO industry?

Unlike traditional industries, the BPO industry is growing at a rapid pace. Therefore, it provides our young graduates with a tremendous opportunity to grow fast. It is fairly common to see team leaders in their mid 20s and operations managers in their late 20s in this industry.

However, people joining this industry need to think about their career strategically. It is very tempting to jump jobs for any number of reasons (personal problems, professional problems, financial problems etc).

Therefore, as is common in the industry, people tend to have lower tenures in any particular company and this prevents them from building deep knowledge and skills in various areas.

Because of this tendency to jump companies, many people are not able to leverage the growth their company can provide as they 'give up' too fast and quit.

A very important tip for youngsters intending to join the BPO industry, would, therefore, be, 'give yourself a chance to grow. Don't quit your jobs. Face the challenges and learn to get over them. That is the only way to add value to yourself.'

What are OnTrac's expansion plans?

OnTrac intends to consolidate its position as a leader in the area of mid-management training for the BPO industry. Many other industries also require similar high quality training programmes and OnTrac intends to address this need.

Apart from corporate training programmes (which are B2B programmes), OnTrac intends to start retail training programmes where it intends to help individuals upgrade their skills directly.

Are you working at a BPO, or planning to work at one? Join the BPO Discussion Group