Gaining confidence with increasing momentum, Sri Lanka is setting about reinventing its economy around Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). BPO is about carrying out business activities for international organizations from Sri Lanka where we gain foreign exchange as well as create thousands of well paying professional jobs.

Sri Lanka's IT-BPO industry has currently set an ambitious goal of $1 billion in revenue to be achieved by 2015. The outsourcing industry has the potential to accelerate Sri Lanka's socio-economic growth by delivering new business and employment opportunities.

Sri Lanka remains well placed to win a big share of the BPO business, with their biggest regional competitors being India and Philippines. Building a skilled workforce benefits a country's economy by expanding its pool of potential recruits especially when it comes to an industry such as the BPO industry, where Sri Lanka is ranked among the Top 30 emerging destinations for outsourcing in 2010 which bodes well for the future growth of the industry. The IT/ BPO industry offers exciting work, fun atmosphere, global exposure and fast paced career progression .

The Lanka BPO Academy (LBA) is taking a major initiative to accelerate and drive the growth of the BPO industry by launching world recognized qualifications that matches the requirements of BPO employers to build industry-specific expertise and ensure better job outcomes for individuals.

The Lanka BPO Academy (www.lankabpoacademy.lk) is the exclusive partner in Sri Lanka for the BPO Certifications Institute (BCI) which is the world's first and only pan-domain, dedicated-for-BPO standards for BPO human competence, service delivery quality and talent management quality. Today, some of the world's largest BPO consulting and training organizations, BPO Industry associations and indeed, governments are joining BCI's various game-changing initiatives in human competence evaluation and development, service delivery quality improvement, and enhancement of talent management standards.

Woven around the HCMS21 international standards and delivered on the most advanced knowledge platforms, the LBA BPO training programmes cover all 6 levels of BPO operatives - fresh agents; senior agents; team leaders, managers; functional leaders and business leaders (CEOs). Indeed, LBA's real expertise is in providing training for all prominent BPO domains like Customer Service, Transaction Processing, Back-office services, Finance & Accounting and Technical Support. BCI's CCIP (Customer Interaction), CBPA (Business Processes), CFPA (Financial Processes), CTSA (Technical Support), certifications straddle the entire BPO service provider space.

The professional certifications by the Lanka BPO Academy are treated as qualification benchmarks for different BPO roles and positions and are deployed by BPO companies for hiring, promotion, and performance management. LBA's fresher certifications have created a powerful new way to build the employability of youths and have changed the way BPO Industry recruits entry-level talents.

For senior levels, LBA is in planning a certification training programme for BPO Managers for the first time in the history of Sri Lanka in early May this year. BPO Professionals did not have proper ongoing professional development and recognition. The CBOM Certification offered for those who hold supervisory roles at such organsaitions is going to solve that problem forever and benefit both the professional and the industry.

Also, most of the countries with a matured BPO industry are suffering from "middle management crisis" which is created by scarcity of rightly competent middle managers. CBOM Certification will help the industry to battle through this by injecting the competence and skills required.

Today, LBA is ready to revitalize the BPO industry in Sri Lanka which stands poised for a giant leap within the next 5 years. LBA is confidently geared to serve the growing IT/BPO workforce by offering them internationally recognized professional qualifications, that will provide lucrative job opportunities with international / multi-national companies . This in turn will be a huge revenue earner for the country and will be a boost to the national economy by being a great employment generator for the island.
The Lanka BPO Academy website is at www.lankabpoacademy.lk