BPOs are heading straight to college campuses

BPOs are tapping into the huge growth in the industry by heading straight to college campuses. Companies are now training teachers on modules that are later introduced in classrooms, reports CNBC-TV18.

In the past six years, 24/7 Customer, a Bangalore based BPO says that employable candidates has dropped from 15 per 100, to a mere 4 per 100. The major problem is a lack of fluency in spoken English. The company has decided to fix the situation by designing a course in language skills, which is to be taught in colleges.

S Nagarajan, Co-founder and COO, 24/7 Customer says, "Historically, we don't pay importance to spoken English so we introduced it as a course and started training teachers."

24/7 Customer has tied up with close to 100 colleges in south India and has trained 50 teachers. The course is introduced as a module for final year college students.

Lason India, a Chennai based BPO is implementing a similar course in the Nehru Memorial Arts and Science College, Tamil Nadu. While this certainly promotes the industry, it remains to be seen if the courses bring in more staff.