First time in India, individual professionals in the outsourcing space are getting together to form an association for the services sector.
Spearheaded by the former state IT secretary Vivek Kulkarni, who quit his government post to turn an entrepreneur, and Kris Gopalakrishnan, COO, Infosys, along with five other leading professionals in the industry, the Association of Outsourcing Professionals (AOP) will be based in Bangalore.
This will not be an industry body like Nasscom but more along the lines of a professional organisation like the US-based Services and Support Professionals Association (SSPA) where members would discuss the issues in the IT sector.
The association will also address the problems in the industry like quality of outsourcing, snags in offshoring and the challenges in the services sector. Best practices are one vital initiative that AOP wil be looking at. “Ways to keep information confidential, provide the best quality services and at the same time how to take care of the small breaches that occur which lead to customer dissatisfaction are some key objectives,” said Vivek Kulkarni, CEO, B2KCorp.
Says Kris Gopalakrishnan, COO, Infosys, “India plays an important role in outsourcing and as a professional body we intend to take this to a higher level and participate in organizations which create standards.”
– News from “The Times of India”, Bangalore, Oct 27th 2005
