McKinsey expert to be keynote speaker at BPO Conference 2009

As the financial tsunami hits worldwide markets, banks & financial services organizations are reeling from the effects as are other business sectors. Outsourcing could play an important role in driving operational efficiency in lean times.

The 2 sectors that are traditional customers for BPO are Financial Services (Banking/Insurance) and the Telecom sectors both of which are fairly well-developed and well established in Pakistan. In the Telecom market, as the market saturates we have already seen the growth stop. Survival will depend upon better customer service and quality. There will be increasing pressure to reduce operational costs. Outsourcing customer service and back-office processes would therefore make perfect sense. Currently the mobile telecom sector alone employs approximately 6000-8000 personnel in the customer service, back-office processing and related areas that could be potentially outsourced.

The Financial services sector is on a similar footing and is also facing increasing pressure on the cost side. The level of understanding of outsourcing in the Financial Services sector is not as advanced as that prevalent in the mobile Telecom sector. However, some banks have started to outsource certain functions and processes. More awareness needs to be created on the benefits of outsourcing.

The idea of holding this conference is to stimulate discussion on the benefits of Outsourcing the back-office and customer service areas as well as Help Desks and other services which do not essentially need to be done in-house.

The Keynote speaker is Mr. Faraz U. Khan from Mckinsey & Co. in Dubai. Other panelists include experts from banks, telcos, financial service companies and the public sector as well as local outsourcing specialists.

Conference participants would include:

Ministry of IT & Telecom
Pakistan Telecommunications Authority
State Bank of Pakistan
Institute of Bankers Pakistan members
Senior representatives from telecom companies and financial institutions
Customer service representatives from telecom, financial, insurance, public sector and multinational organizaitons
Senior representatives from Outsourcing companies

Organizers: The conference is being organized by the Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & IT Enabled Services (P@SHA) in collaboration with the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), Sponsors include The Resource Group (TRG),  Ovex Technologies, Abacus Consulting and Catcos.  Supporting partners include the Institute of Bankers Pakistan and CIO Pakistan, Multinet and Commtel.

Look at the promo at the WebStudio.

Register for the conference by clicking here.