Wednesday, January 19 2005 12:42 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: The Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) has launched a new service - CBC Technologies - to advise and facilitate offshore outsourcing services in technology and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

"The UK is seen as a gateway to Europe for many businesses. Over 400 Indian firms have set up operations in the UK in recent years and the Commonwealth comprises 54 nations, some with excellent capabilities to provide remote services to UK customers," Director General of the Commonwealth Business Council, Dr Mohan Kaul, said.

"CBC Technologies service is an important step in the development of CBC and it will allow the CBC to offer a world-class service in the field of offshore outsourcing advice and facilitation," he said.

"CBC has a completely different value proposition to the myriad of consultants offering outsourcing advice. We are entirely independent," said Managing Director of CBC Technologies, Anoop Singh.

"We have an excellent relationship with the 54 Governments of the Commonwealth and most leading global corporations through our membership and we will also focus attention on the large Small and Medium Entrepreneur sector. They are the companies who need most help at present and we intend to offer a world-class service to the smaller players," Singh said.

The launch coincided with the one-day seminar jointly hosted by India Business Forum and Commonwealth Business Council in London.

"India is leading the world in remote BPO services. This debate has moved far beyond the tired argument about call centers and jobs vanishing to India," said Chairman of the India Business Forum, Mahesh Ramachandran.

"Companies realise today that their competition is global and their resource pool also needs to be global, in order to access the right levels of expertise and so compete with their peers. The tasks that can be performed offshore are so complex that we are now looking at an age of Knowledge Process Outsourcing - KPO, not BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)," he added.

According to Mark Kobayashi-Hillary, Research Director of CBC Technologies and author of 'Outsourcing to India: The Offshore Advantage, CBC has constructed a list of hundreds of offshore service providers and performed due diligence on them all.

"This is not just a yellow pages list of vendors; everyone has earned a place on the list and inclusion is free. We can provide the best matchmaking service in the industry because of our independent status and we have the highest level contacts to help our clients," he said.