Infosys BPO, the back-office arm of India’s second-biggest software exporter Infosys, plans to acquire captive operations of customers, as the company seeks to grow its share of the $80-billion global BPO market. Almost two years ago, Infosys BPO acquired back office operations of Philips, which assured around $250 million in revenues over the next few years. The acquisition helped Infosys gain entry into Poland and other European countries.

“We are open to similar takeovers if the right deal comes through,” Infosys BPO CEO Amitabh Chaudhry said. “We are not looking at opening any new centres across the globe, but if such a deal comes along that requires them to have a facility, then we would go ahead.”

Infosys BPO entered into a seven-year contract with Royal Philips Electronics of Netherlands to provide finance and accounting services and the processing of purchasing orders in a deal valued at $250 million. The Philips centres are turning profitable, Mr Chaudhry added.  Source

HCL BPO, a division of HCL Technologies, has signed a five-year deal with a Britain-based water utilities client that has around 5,000 employees. As of now, the company has less than 100 people working for the client, but it expects to add more by June-end. HCL is also in talks with four other potential water utilities in the UK and Europe as well as some energy utilities.

“Utilities like water, energy and electricity are relatively immune to the economic slowdown and we are focused on the UK market in the first place, specially for water utilities,” Neeraj Tandon, global head, Retail and Utilities Business Unit, told Business Standard. “HCL BPO has invested in creating service propositions in bringing in the domain skills for creating, building and adapting platforms for the utilities industry and in knowledge management, performance management and process management,” he added. (more…)