Now, grey matter is a hot pick

In India, ‘intelligent outsourcing’ is estimated to be a Rs 1,000 crore revenue industry, though only a few players cater to global publishing clients using professional writers and educational or technical specialists apart from ’plain’ graduates.

‘‘Although highly skilled employees are a relatively small percentage of our total employees, their background makes them best suited to provide development and editorial support to publishing clients,’’ says Ranjit Singh, CEO of TechBooks, a publishing outsourcing setup.While NASSCOM is assessing the potential of publishing offshoring, several local firms are making a mark internationally. E-book publisher Kolam, with clients like Oxford University Press and Macmillan, was bought over by SPI Technologies, one of Asia’s largest BPO outfits.

Book BPOs also hope to talk the educated elite into tech-sector service jobs. ‘‘The opportunity to be involved in the production of scholarly works is attractive to the people we have hired. In addition the ability to use their educational background in this career setting is also appealing,” says Singh.

In this segment, too, India is poised to be cost effective and a quality destination. India already outpaces the Philippines, China, Mexico and the CIS in vendor sophistication, number and quantity of vendors in the sector.

‘‘India’s resource of highly educated, highly skilled English speaking professionals provide the US and UK-based publishers with best value for producing their products globally,’’ said NASSCOM President Kiran Karnik.