India among favourites for recruitment process outsourcing

PTI Nov 11, 2009, 06.56pm IST

NEW DELHI: In a bid to cut costs, corporate giants based in the United States and the UK are looking to leverage their
recruitment process outsourcing services from emerging market locations like India, a survey says.
According to global consulting and research firm Everest Group, increasing cost pressures in the current economic
environment has led North American and UK buyers to start receiving the back-office RPO services from offshore location such
as India.
"The value proposition of RPO is still resonating with buyers that are looking for a cost-effective option to withstand the current
turmoil and at the same time create an efficient talent acquisition process that can be scaled up quickly when business
environment improves," Everest Group Principal and Country Head Gaurav Gupta said.
Indian suppliers such as Infosys, Wipro and Caliber Point have already entered this space in the past two years, while Western
suppliers such as Momentum and PeopleScout are also leveraging India for delivering RPO services.
The survey further highlighted that a significant number of North American-headquartered large, MNCs adopt RPO for their
European and Asia-Pacific operations.
RPO industry growing at healthy rate: Study
PTI Nov 11, 2009, 09.42pm IST
NEW DELHI: The market for recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) continues to grow at a healthy rate notwithstanding the
tough economic condition with the number of deals signed rising this year, a study said.
Recruitment Process Outsourcing is a form of business process outsourcing (BPO), where an employer outsources or transfers
all or part of its recruitment activities to an external service provider.
The study by global consulting and research firm Everest Group said that there is a marginal increase in deal signings this year
compared to 2008, but decreased hiring volume is resulting in more selective, smaller-sized deals.
"RPO is witnessing a fair amount of interest among buyers given the focus and specialisation that RPO suppliers bring to the
table," Everest Group Country Head Gaurav Gupta said.
"While the hiring volumes are down in the current economic environment, the value proposition of RPO is still resonating with
buyers that are looking for a cost-effective option to withstand the current turmoil," he added.
Increasing cost pressures in the current economic environment has led North American and UK buyers to start receiving the
back-office RPO services from offshore location such as India, the study added.
Recruitment outsourcing to grow by 35% in India
Sanjiv Kumar May 7, 2007, 10.26am IST
NEW DELHI: With the country set to face a talent crunch of half million people in the next few years,
Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is posing a lot of opportunities . With emerging sectors like
retailing and IT, the need for focused players in recruiting as RPO service providers will increase ,
according to human capital management company Kenexa Technologies.
"There is an intense war for talent. The hiring projections for India are very rosy and the clients are
demanding higher quality candidates with increased efficiency . I feel, RPO as an industry will grow
30 to 35 per cent annually for the next 5 years," Kenexa Technologies Director Tarun Singh told
Mumbai Mirror.
It is estimated that within the Indian market, the total annual spend on recruitment is Rs 700-800
crore. This can theoretically be considered the potential size of the RPO business, a subset of human
resource outsourcing (HRO), that can be generated from locally-based companies .
"Hiring pressure is forcing companies outsource the entire recruitment cycle from needs assessment
to sourcing, screening, and interviewing candidates, and hiring.
In fact, 80 per cent of HR personnel are engaged in recruitment process and in between they fail to
focus on other core HR activities, including training, staffing needs, ensuring performance. Here
enters RPO that takes care of the entire recruitment headache and saves time and cost of companies
too." Kelly Services India Country General Manager Achal Khanna pointed out.
A Nasscom-McKinsey report has projected that the Indian firms' revenues from HRO will increase to
$3.5 billion by 2008, while Gartner thinks India can expect to win 10-15 per cent of the US HRO
services market; and finally, only 6 per cent of US HR spend is offshored, a figure that is certain to
rise.
Talking to this newspaper, talent management firm SITI Corporation President and CEO Veena
Gundavelli said, "We have serviced about 100 RPO clients in SITI in the last couple of years and we
expect to double the customer base with some long term-contracts . The types of customers that we
have can broadly be classified into four verticals - IT, engineering , healthcare and financial services
industry."
Gundavelli explained that RPO is primarily being embraced in two models model one is pure
sourcing and providing support services to on-shore US based recruiters to enhance their productivity
and effectiveness, model two is full cycle recruiting from sourcing, screening and onboarding for both
temporary contract as well as permanent positions to reduce overall cost of recruiting operations and
to improve efficiency at the same time.