Moving up the value chain: How India’s BPM is creating new career pathways

The second episode of the Economic Times x Nasscom podcast series brought together Dr Abhilasha Gaur, CEO of the Nasscom Sector Skill Council; Sapna Bhambani, Country Leader and Senior Vice President of Operations at TaskUs; and Giridhar GV., CEO APAC and Global CHRO, Hinduja Global Solutions. Together, the speakers explained the shifts redefining the industry: BPM is no longer just about generating jobs, but about creating careers that can last.

For students, jobseekers, and early-career employees, the conversation offered a clear message: BPM is no longer a stopgap job, but a place where people can grow into digital roles, advisory roles, and leadership roles, provided they are willing to learn continuously.

A sector in transition

Giridhar set the tone early by calling the present moment one of the most important phases the industry has ever faced. “I think this is probably one of the most important transformations and a phase that the industry is going through, especially the BPM and IT services sector. And this is probably something which we’ve never seen before and all of us are really learning through what’s happening and I think this is probably the most relevant conversation to have at this point in time,” he said.

That sense of transition was central to the discussion. The change, the experts suggested, is structural. It is about what work looks like, what talent is expected to do, what leaders must build, and what young professionals must now expect from their careers.

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The old BPM model, he explained, was built around “call centres” and “basic work that could be done remotely.” But the industry has moved steadily up the value chain. What is changing now, he argued, is even more profound: the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), rapid technological adoption, and a shift away from routine processing towards work that demands judgement, contextual understanding, and confidence that comes from knowing the big picture and not just the immediate assignment.

“The shape and form of what a BPM employer is will certainly change,” he said. “The quality of work. It’s moving away from transaction role-based work, which otherwise was done manually. With today’s technology platforms that are available, you could move all that to using technology,” Giridhar added.

From jobs to careers

Bhambani anchored the conversation in people. “One of the things why this is so important to me when we talk about beyond employment and focusing on talent, especially the industry that we all have spent more than a couple of decades in, is all about people,” she said. “We don’t sell a product, we sell services. And service comes from the heart,” Bhambani added.

That distinction matters because it reframes the BPM industry from a transactional employer into a people-intensive ecosystem. Bhambani argued that if talent is not placed “right at the centre of your strategy” and built into the “DNA” of the organisation, the industry itself cannot survive. She also linked business transformation to community transformation, saying it is “not only just about building businesses, it’s also about transformation of the community as a whole that we are seeing in the current phase.”

Gaur took that idea further by directly challenging a long-standing perception. “Today I’m here to completely dismantle this idea,” she said, referring to the notion that BPM is a stopover job for graduates. “You know that the BPM industry today is one of the most dynamic career ecosystems as we see around,” she added.

She recast the sector as a well-sustained ecosystem rather than a stepping stone. “It is more like a web of opportunities,” she said. “You can move sideways, upwards, diagonally across domains, technologies, even across geographies, all within the same sector,” she explained. Later, she sharpened the image even more: “It’s not a ladder, it’s a climbing wall.”

What skills now matter

If there was one area where the speakers converged strongly, it was skills. But their definition of skills went far beyond certificates or narrow technical qualifications. The shift, as they described it, is from knowing how to do one role to knowing how to learn, interpret and contribute across roles.

Bhambani put it sharply: “Rather than just becoming an AI-literate, you have to learn to become an AI multiplier.” In her view, AI should not be treated as a box-ticking skill. It should be used to accelerate performance, improve judgement, and multiply output. “It’s not just about the skill,” she said, “but these days talking about prompt engineering, the prompts are not possible until you really understand the problem statement and the expected solution that’s going to take you there.”

Gaur offered a useful framework for fresh graduates. The first layer, she said, is digital literacy. “Digital literacy means understanding the logic of technology,” she explained. “How does AI make a decision? What does it mean for a business process to be automated? Or how does data flow from a customer interaction to a business insight?” she added.

The second layer is business problem solving. This, she said, is often underdeveloped in freshers because many enter with the expectation that they will simply follow the process. But the companies that succeed want people who can question the process, identify the actual problem, and recommend a solution. “One of India’s largest BPM companies told us that when they look at high performers, let’s say five into a career, the number one differentiator is not the technical skills, it is the ability to frame problems clearly,” she said.

The third layer is human skills. “Communication, collaboration, adaptability, creativity,” she said, elaborating that these are the qualities AI cannot replace. “Technical skills may get you the interview, but human skills will determine your entire career trajectory,” she added.

Five years ago, a customer service associate was essentially a script follower, but today they are using AI-powered sentiment analysis tools, interpreting customer journey data, and contributing ideas to product teams, Gaur explained.

Building talent inside

If the nature of work is changing this quickly, how should organisations help employees move beyond entry-level roles?

Gaur described the shift as one from role-based progression to skill-based progression. For decades, she argued, career advancement followed a very predictable logic that you do your current job well and you get promoted into the next job, your title, determine your trajectory. “But that model is breaking down,” she said.

In its place, companies are building internal talent marketplaces, learning academies, certification recognition systems, and stretch assignments. She illustrated this through the example of a customer service associate who pursued data analytics on her own, moved into an internal analytics team, then began contributing to client-facing dashboards and later led a small team. “That’s not a fairy tale; that’s the actual power of skill-based mobility,” she said.

That shift also changes the logic of hiring and retention. Giridhar argued that organisations need “talent who can think, who can apply their mind, who will probably be involved in more judgement than just processing something or doing transactional work.” He said the sector will continue to hire graduates, but what happens after they join will be very different from the old model.

The larger implication is that talent-building cannot end with recruitment. It must continue through structured learning, internal movement, and leadership development. As Gaur put it, “The future of career mobility can’t require people to quit their jobs to reinvent themselves.”

The rise of Tier II talent

One of the strongest shifts in the industry is the move away from metros.

Gaur said that the workforce already reflects this reality, noting that many employees in Tier I locations are migrants from smaller cities. But the more important question, she suggested, is why jobs should not be taken to talent instead of forcing talent to move to jobs. “What if you take jobs with that talent and set up shops out there?” she asked.

Bhambani built on that with a business-and-community argument. Locating operations in Tier II and Tier III cities, she said, is not just a strategy for cost or scale. “It’s also about leading into a purpose of community transformation,” she said. “People who come and work for you absolutely value the jobs much more because the opportunities are pretty rare,” Bhambani explained.

She also pointed out that employment creates spillover effects. “Every four jobs that you create, not only the people that you employ, there is one more employment getting created outside,” she said, citing security, outsourcing, and allied services. That makes the location strategy bigger than hiring alone. It becomes ecosystem-building.

At the same time, she acknowledged a real challenge: leadership and mid-management talent are not always immediately available in these markets. That is why internal career pathways matter so much. “Upskilling not only at the leadership level, but what it takes for a customer service associate to become probably a data analyst, to become a WFM analyst or to move into learning experiences,” she said.

Paycheck and purpose

The purpose versus paycheck debate was one of the most compelling strands in the discussion because the speakers refused to treat the two as mutually exclusive. Gaur said the industry has long been caught in a narrative where people saw BPM as “good employment, steady income, but to what purpose?” But, she argued, that story is changing.

“What we see is that a lot of BPM firms take on work in climate data, financial inclusion, public health infrastructure areas where the social impact is undeniable,” she said. “A young professional working on, let’s say financial inclusion data for an underserved community in rural India is doing purpose-driven work. They just need someone to name it for them,” she explained.

Purpose in BPM now works in two directions. One faces outward, towards the client, the end user and the community being served. The other faces inward, towards the individual’s own growth, identity and sense of belonging. “The organisations that are winning the talent war are the ones that have figured out how to speak to both,” she said.

Bhambani gave the human side of that equation. She said attrition data often lists salary as a reason for exit, but the deeper story is different. And understanding that story is key to realising why purpose matters in retention as much as it matters in branding.

She also introduced a line that neatly captured the new language of business. “Earlier what the board of an organisation would look at is profits, just profits. And today there are multiple Ps into it. It’s not just profits; it’s profits, people, and its purpose.”

The mindset shift

Regarding the future of the BPM in a decade, Giridhar noted that the first word that comes to his mind is “adaptability.” He urged young professionals to be willing to “learn, unlearn, learn, unlearn in your career.” In a sector shaped by fast-moving technology, he warned, there is “no room for complacency.”

Bhambani added that future-ready workers will need stronger emotional intelligence. “Humans, where the education system is focused, it has to continue to focus on the EQ,” she said. The reason is simple: AI may automate tasks, but it cannot replace leadership in conflict resolution, team-building, or decision-making under ambiguity.

Gaur added: “I’m joining an industry coming as a learner and not just a earner,” she said. And that summed up the essence of the conversation: how purpose works in both directions, from the employer’s and the job-seeker’s perspectives, and how modern BPM firms are enabling this mindset shift.

It captures the shift from transactional thinking to developmental thinking, and from short-term salary focus to long-term career architecture.

She ended on a note that ties together the entire discussion: “Be a lifelong learner that will navigate you ahead in your career.” In the BPM industry’s next phase, that may well be the defining advantage.