As with other forms of KPO, the potential for market-research analytics is huge. The market-research industry totals $22 billion globally, of which 40% can be outsourced, says Sahgal. “About $40 million in processing work is being performed in India by third-party service providers, and captive offshore operations account for another $60-$70 million,” he says. The Indian market is dominated by a few players, such as WNS’ Knowledge Services division, Evalueserve and Annik.
| |
|
|
|
Next |
|
| |
|
|
|
STEPS |
|
| |
8 |
|
Isolate the analytical tasks employed by your company, such as financial analysis, market research or customer acquisition, and separate the back-office tasks such as data cleansing and normalization |
| |
| |
8 |
|
Perform a cost-benefit analysis of sending this work to an outside service provider, either onshore or offshore |
| |
| |
8 |
|
Evaluate service providers based on their proven expertise in a particular domain, as well as the depth of their analytical skills, including familiarity with statistical-research techniques. |
Since many of the techniques used in market research can be applied to other analytic-intensive tasks, the possibility exists for expansion from market research into other services employing deep analytics, such as Intellectual Property (IP) research. In IP research, the business case for offshoring is the cost of filing a patent. A typical application filed with the U.S. patent office costs between $10,000 and $15,000. Offshoring even a small portion of the patent process can save up to 50% of this cost. An IP specialist in an offshore location can produce a preliminary draft of a patent application, which is then reviewed and modified by an onshore patent attorney before it is filed with the patent office.
Other forms of IP-related services that can be offshored include asset management, researching technology domains, licensing and commercialization. Such services can be provided not only for patents but for other forms of IP, including trademarks and copyrights. Some patent-law firms in the U.S.A. are hopping on the offshore bandwagon themselves, setting up captive back-office centers in India to perform this work.
As long as the cost differentials and other value propositions for offshoring remain strong, it’s a safe bet that KPO and analytics will help drive the growth of offshore centers, resulting in a win-win situation for clients and service providers.
