Innovation is the secret of their success. They believe a simple idea can transform lives. They dream big and are passionate about their goals… Meet the young, ambitious, intelligent and enterprising architects of India. Here’s a special series on India’s best innovators and entrepreneurs, winners of the latest Nasscom Innovation Award 2008.

“The entrepreneurial journey is driven by an individual bug, it’s the pursuit to make a dream come true,” says Aparup Sengupta, CEO, Aegis BPO Services. A serial entrepreneur (he built three successful start-ups — 24/7 Customer; IonIdea, an IT Services company based out of Fairfax Virginia; and Think Harbor, a BPO consulting company — before joining the Essar Group to head Aegis.

For this ambitious entrepreneur, work has always been exciting. “It has been great fun to build this start up. With the blessings of the Essar Group, we have established ourselves as a very profitable BPO,” Sengupta says with pride. (more…)

The book, by Sudhindra Mokhasi, dealing with true stories from India’s BPOs and call centres, was launched on Friday at the Crossword bookstore.

The book was released by Capt Gopinath, the pioneer of the low cost airline Air Deccan in India. Also present for the launch was Anant Koppar, the chairman and the managing director of K2 Technologies. The author’s wife Aparna was also present for the launch.

Sudhindra Mokhasi was vice president with one of India’s leading IT-BPO companies. In 2007, he founded e-Sutra Chronicles and is presently the CEO of the same. He is an avid traveller, traveloguer and award-winning photographer.

The book is a collection of 150 true stories from the Indian BPO and call centre sector, one of the most thriving industries in India. It is an attempt to replace the mundane technicalities of the world with some refreshing incidents.

The main purpose of writing the book is that “the individuals are not seen as mere coughs in the machine. Rather, they are brought forth as living entities who have their subjective ups and downs. It is a tapestry of the ‘true’ BPO life compiled through humourous anecdotes either by personal experience or elicited through interviews with a wide spectrum of BPO people in an attempt to humanise the industry,” said Mokhashi. (more…)

A BPO employee was killed and his newly wed wife assaulted by criminals before they decamped with valuables from the couple & aposs house today, police here said. A gang of four, speaking in Kannada struck at the house of Umesh Krishnan, in the Ramaswamy Palya area under the Banaswadi police limits in the wee hours, they said.

Krishnan, employed with Infosys BPO had opened the door hearing the calling bell and the criminals had forced their way into the house. To silence Krishnan, they stuck a plaster on his mouth, which accidentally also covered his nose leading to his death due to suffocation, police said. The miscreants then assaulted Krishnan&aposs newly wed wife Honey Mary, snatched away her”mangal sutra”and other valuables, the cost of which was being assessed, they added.

The couple had moved into their rented house barely 30 days back after getting married four months ago. Police have launched a hunt for the culprits. In a similar incident yesterday, which occurred in another locality under the same police limits, a four-member gang shot dead Javed Farvez, who owns a travel agency, and his wife Azia Banu. Source

HCL’s BPO company is looking to buy platform-based BPO firms in the US, UK and Australia with revenues of up to $250 million, its chief executive said. “We want to de-link revenue growth from headcount growth. So, we want to acquire companies in Englishspeaking countries that derive revenues from output or outcome-based pricing and platform-led services,” HCL BPO president and CEO N Ranjit said.

Last year, the BPO arm of HCL Technologies had acquired two firms —UKbased Liberata Financial Services (LFS) and US-based Control Point Solutions. The BPO firm aims to earn revenues of $1 billion by 2010-11 and expects about 56% or $560 million to come from acquired entities . HCL BPO had revenues of about $223 million in the year-ended June 2008.

Confident of closing at least one buyout this year, Mr Ranjit said the company’s strategy is to buy loss-making or marginally profitable entities at low prices and turning them around. So, while BPO firms typically go under the hammer at 1.5-2 times their revenues , Control Point, with revenues of $27 million, was bought for $20 million. HCL BPO paid $2 million to acquire LFS’ fixed assets and committed an investment of another $24 million. The firm is confident of turning around both acquired companies by the end of calendar year 2009. (more…)