BPO stands for Business Process Outsourcing. Major corporations in the US and Europe are outsourcing their back office operations to India to save costs. E.g. employee payroll is maintained in India for their employees worldwide. Although these jobs usually are not directly IT-related, their data-based orientation often means that they require IT departmental support to be successfully outsourced.

ITES stands for IT-enabled services. IT-enabled outsourcing can be defined as,

• Those outsourcing services that use information technology in the processing and delivery of the service.
• Services are typically delivered through a telecommunications or data network, or other electronic media

The practice of sending outsourced functions of any sort, whether IT-based or business process positions, to a nearby country rather than choosing markets such as India or Malaysia that are thousands of miles away. e.g. US nearshores the work to Canada and Mexico.

There is a disagreement as to what exactly constitutes BPO. With the rapid expansion of the BPO industry and the extent of its reach, it is becoming increasingly difficult to define what a BPO exactly means. It encompasses a wide variety of activities such as human resource, accounting, financial research, marketing, sales, legal work, logistics and so on. Software services are also regarded as a part of the BPO market by many firms.

BPM stands for Business Process Management, basically this is about outsourcing the business processes.

• BTO stands for Business Transformation Outsourcing. Accenture defines BTO as a strategic partnership between the customer and the outsourcer with the advantage of sophisticated financing mechanisms. It would involve the firm acquiring strategic stakes in the BPO operations that companies have outsourced. BTO involves sharing risks and gains with an outsource business partner, measuring the performance improvement in dramatic gains in the share price, market position and return on capital.

  A BTO provides a comprehensive set of services across the entire organisation resulting in a pre-decided output, whereas a BPO is just a contract for outsourcing services/ functions to be done in a specified way. BTOs are more profitable and higher up in the value chain.

• BTO also stands for Business Technology Transformation. It is a fast growing nice in BPO and is expected to become a $7 billion industry by 2007 from the current $2.5 million [2004]. BTO can reduce the overhead cost of enterprises by 20%. BTO is about governing the priorities, people and processes of organizations. It aligns IT and business strategy of a company while optimising quality, performance and business availability. According to Yankee Group, BTO enables companies measure and maximise business value across its IT investments.

BPO2 stands for Business Process Optimization and Outsourcing.

KPO stands for Knowledge Process Outsourcing. KPO involves offshoring of knowledge intensive business processes that require specialised domain expertise, thus delivering high value to organisations by providing business expertise rather than just process expertise.

MBPO stands for Medical Business Process Outsourcing. Apollo Hospitals is the first major hospital to be getting into this.

HRO stands for Human Resource Outsourcing. HR is getting outsourced to third party providers who can bring in the benefits of knowing the domain.

HR as an activity, it comprises of a group of activities, which include payroll management, training, staffing, benefits administration, travel and expenses management, retirement and benefits planning, risk management, compensation consulting, etc. These activities are outsourced by which the client can concentrate on their core competency.

In the US context, HR outsourcing is a huge area. For instance, nearly about 29-30 per cent of the outsourcing space is HR.

RPO stands for Research Process Outsourcing. This is popular in the biotech industry. Clients outsource their R&D work. This was termed reportedly by India's biotech queen Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.

RPO also stands for Recruitment Process Outsourcing. RPO is a key component of Human Resource Outsourcing (HRO). The RPO team basically handles all the recruitment work for their clients.

EPO stands for Engineering Process Outsourcing. India's engineering process outsourcing (EPO) business would grow 10-fold by 2014 to touch USD 30 billion and make the country a major hub in this area. The global EPO market, on the other hand, will grow to around USD 110-USD 140 billion by 2015, taking India's share to 20-27 percent, said the study conducted by the state-run Engineering Export Promotion Council.

ESO stands for Engineering Services Outsourcing.

Engineering Services Outsourcing (ESO) includes product design, research and development and other technical services across sectors like automotive, aerospace, hi-tech/telecom, utilities and construction/industrial machinery.

Spending on engineering services was $750 billion in 2004 and is projected to grow to $1.1 trillion globally by 2020, according to a recent Nasscom and Booz Allen Hamilton study - Globalisation Of Engineering Services - the next frontier for India.

ESO also stands for Educational Services Outsourcing. Education is a growing sector and the demand for Indian educators is on the rise. ESO market is estimated to be USD eight billion dollars and Indian teachers are currently offering services to countries like US, UK , Canada , and the Middle East. Though the main demand is from USA, newer markets of Netherlands and Europe too are fast opening up for Indian teachers.

Procurement BPO is transfer of management and execution of one of more procurement activities, transfer of the entire procurement sub-segments or transfer of the entire procurement business functions to an external provider. It offers increased productivity, cost reduction and business transformation to the client. It has a market potential of $10 billion by 2006.

HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The US healthcare industry has been interested in simplifying administrative processes and improving efficiency for several decades. The industry leaders concluded that greater standardization of data and transactions was necessary to improve efficiencies. This conclusion was subsequently memorialized by specific administrative simplification language included in the healthcare legislation called the HIPAA.