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No billing woes for legal KPOs
Sanjay K Pillai
Mumbai
This is one segment of the Indian ITeS Industry which need not worry about billing rates coining down, i in the foreseeable fu¬ture, at least.
We are talking about the booming knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) industry and specifically the high-end legal outsourcing segment. The raison d'aitro is not far to see. "Attorneys in the IIS are charging higher and higher fees every year and this ensures that the cost benchmark in the US moves up every year," says Sanjay Karnlanj co-founder of legal outsourcing BPO -Pangea 3.
"Clients always perceive that they are getting these services cheaper than what they would have paid in the OS," agrees an IT analyst with a leading data tracking firm. According to a recant study put out by EvalUfr serve, the knowledge process outsourcing industry worldwide is expected to grow at a CAGR of about 46% and could be as much as §17 billion in the next five years. The current size is es¬timated to be just above a billion dollars.
The Evalueserve study indicates that India could end up offering as much S30 billion by providing a com¬bination of BPO and KPO services by 3)10. Says Kam-lani, “The US spent close to $200 billion in legal costs last year. But importantly the general counsel's budget in the US corporate is shrinking. The inhouse legal head now has to do more for a lesser budget.”
"Pangea3 has a US client which is into telecom soft¬ware. If they had not out sourced their work to us they would not have been able to do 40 patent applica¬tions with a $500,000 budg¬et" Kamlani points nut-Cost savings mean shaving off close to 50% for the end customer. “ln the case of contract drafting, law firms in the US can charge as much as $400 per hour. In India, Firms charge between $50 and $100,” he says. Small wonder then that Firms like Pangea 3 are ramping up staff. "We expect to hire close to 400 lawyers in the next three years,” Kamlani says, Pangea3 has at present 23 lawyers working for them. Salaries are also attractive. Says Suryanarayanan, head of recruitment firm, Populus. “For quality people it is not uncommon to find a Rs 10 lakh compensation-"
