BPO Certification Institute NewsROOM

Intensifying its efforts to assist emerging BPO nations in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe increase their global competitiveness in business process outsourcing; BCI launched the Quantum Leap® initiative earlier this month. Under this, BCI will identify top-performing BPOs and Contact Centers in each of these countries and implement the latest releases of the BCI TMMS and SDMS standards at a subsidized cost. The entities that finally complete their compliance to these standards will be awarded the BSDQ®/ BTMQ® certification. Notably, BCI is releasing its latest Talent Management Master Standards (TMMS) and Service Delivery Master Standards in April and July 2010 respectively.

Richardson; August 19, 2009 – Even as several emerging BPO destinations in Africa and parts of West Asia begin to experience the power of BCI credentialing and BPO human competence standards and the network of BCI authorized CTPs (Certification Training Providers) spreads out deeper in these regions, the path has been paved also for the establishment of the long-awaited virtual pre-certification training network on the world wide web. The BCI CTP Management Team finally got the long-awaited approval from the BCI Board in Texas, for commencing the process of establishing a global Virtual CTP Network (VCN), which would offer BPO training through a combination of online modes. The Virtual CTP Network (VCN) project would take about two years to complete from start to finish, though certain countries should begin to experience the online pre-certification training programs for select BCI Certifications by Q2, 2010. Numerous online training companies have applied to BCI to gain license for offering pre-certification training online through their portals and online engines and the Technical Audit process is now on to shortlist organizations that would get the first opportunity to join the BCI VCN. When complete, the VCN is expected to cater to a worldwide audience of almost 6 million BPO, call center and outsourcing professionals annually.

The BPO wave has left no shore untouched and West Asia too, seems appreciably smitten by the attractive economic possibilities that BPO is pregnant with. With recession breaking the backs of the construction, trading and oil-based industries, all Middle Eastern governments are looking at alternatives to perk up their respective economies. In recent years, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have all broken into the top 20 most attractive offshoring destinations, according to an index published by A.T. Kearney Inc.

BCI’s footprint in Africa has grown by half a dozen nations in the last two quarters of 2009 and the latest addition is Nigeria. Though a relatively late joiner in the African BPO safari, Nigeria possesses several unique BPO-demanded strengths and the Nigerian government has finally begun looking at BPO as an industry of the future. Home to some of the Africa’s best managed telecom companies and rich and professional banks and financial institutions, in entire Africa, Nigeria does look to be at the cusp of at least the Call-Center revolution and there are enough signs that the country is anxious to join the non-voice BPO wave as well.

The world’s first credentialing programs for fresh-entrants in the KPO industry are finally ready for launch. The first two of these KPO credentialing programs, CFAP® (Certified Financial Analytics Professional) and CMAP® (Certified Marketing Analytics Professional) had successfully cleared the critical 3rd stage of validation in June 2009 and were awaiting final clearances from the BCI BPO Professional Certifications Council. These certifications are expected to create a fundamental impact on how the KPO industry identifies, develops, hires and manages young talents at the entry-level. The US$ 17 billion global KPO industry is on a growth swing and nations like India, Russia, China and Ireland, which are busy configuring and restructuring their KPO business competitiveness and delivery capabilities, are looking at specialist KPO credentials for their workforce to retain the edge they have won over the last few years.  Notably, the CFAP® and CMAP® programs credential young talents with KPO-matched educational backgrounds for KPO suitability on the basis of the BCI HCMS21 Standards, Release 3.1.