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Want to make the most of the next generation boom in the IT and BPO industry? Learn a European language - French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch or Russian. Close behind these European languages are others like Japanese, Korean and even Mandarin.
That's the message coming out of a study by Evalueserve, the global research solutions provider, which says India will need some 1,60,000 foreign language professionals for its offshoring Industry (IT, BPO and KPO) by 2010. These professionals will be required to address the demand for language-sensitive work that can potentially be offshored from Continental Europe and the Far East, the study says.
The Evalueserve study estimates that the total addressable market for language-sensitive work will be worth $14.4 billion by 2010. According to the study, while the IT industry will account for nearly 50 per cent of this demand, the BPO and KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) segment are expected to account for the remaining 50 per cent.
Further, this growing demand for language-sensitive work will have a positive impact on the Indian economy, as it is expected to create a multiplier effect on the job market for Indians. According to the report, for every one job created for a foreign language professional, two new jobs will be created for Indian English-speaking professionals.
However, there could be supply-side constraints on the number of trained language professionals available in India to meet this demand. According to the report, not more than 40,000 Indians with foreign language specialisation will qualify to meet this requirement.
This may mean a sudden influx of foreigners, who have now begun to consider India as an attractive destination for job opportunities, starting a reverse brain gain. Professionals from all over the world, especially Continental Europe, are beginning to relocate to India to work in IT and BPO companies.
With in-house foreign language capabilities, Indian IT, BPO and KPO companies are trying to capture a larger share of the Continental European outsourcing market, thereby reducing their high-risk exposure of more than 80 percent to the US and the UK economies.
"Currently, we are witnessing several French and German speaking professionals, mostly in their early twenties and many with business or technical degrees, coming to work in India on short to medium-term employment contracts," Mohit Srivastava, AVP of Evalueserve, explains.
Other languages in demand are Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin. These foreign language professionals are needed by the IT and offshoring industry, primarily for jobs involving collection of information; and working on foreign language documents, voice-based tasks, training, transaction and migration processes, quality management or any other document outputs.
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