• VARUN JAITLY: After BPO, we are hearing about KPO (or knowledge process outsourcing). What next?

I don’t buy any of that stuff. I don’t think any of that is relevant. In fact, I think it is a combination of business process and technology — and we do KPO and BPO. Companies don’t come to you and say I’ll buy a little bit of KPO and a little bit of BPO. These are terms we have coined here and you’ll find that it will continue. People will look for specialisation and you can specialise in finance, accounting, banking, or pharma.

But you cannot say that I am a BPO specialist: nobody knows what’s that and customers don’t care. Will there be niches that will come up? Absolutely, hundreds of them — like legal processing. But it all requires specialisation and real domain knowledge. So in these areas there will be lots of options. That’s the joy of this. It has unleashed so much entrepreneurship that is fantastic.

• VRISHTI BENIWAL: What do you think of the recent statements from the Union Health Ministry on the need for regulation of employee health in BPOs?

I would love government officials to come over to my office so that they get the real view of life in a BPO. And I am talking about the broad BPO sector. If you look at the top companies in BPO, with the demand for employees so strong, no company could afford not to take care of its employees. Our employees are our only assets. Rather than regulation, we would love to engage government officials through Nasscom and say, okay, what is it that you are worried about? Do you think the likes of IBM, Accenture, Infosys, Goldman Sachs and so on do not provide appropriate facilities to their employees? I don’t think so. We have a health clinic downstairs for our employees.

... contd.