Accenture has decided to make 250,000 unskilled and semi-skilled people around the world job- or business-ready by 2015.

Accenture and Accenture Foundation will invest over $100 million into this initiative called ‘Skills to Succeed’. It will seek to educate people, and build skills that enable them to participate in and contribute to areas like IT, BPO, hospitality and retail .

India is likely to be a significant beneficiary of this campaign as the country has over 450 million unskilled and semi-skilled people under 35. The company has roped in Dr Reddy’s Foundation and Nasscom Foundation to provide BPO skills training to underprivileged youth from rural India. It has entered into a partnership with IGNOU to offer a diploma course on BPO services. “With Nasscom Foundation, we will train adolescent girls and young women from economically backward areas in animation skills,” said Rekha Menon, executive director in Accenture India. Source

Noida-based iEnergizer today became the first Indian BPO to list on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange and raised 37 million pounds on the first day. Stock exchange sources said with the listing of iEnergizer, the total number of Indian companies on AIM has gone up to 23.

iEnergizer that successfully raised £37 million, is one of the five largest IPOs on AIM so far this year. Its opening day market capitalisation is approximately £174 million, the stock exchange said.

iEnergizer is a full service BPO firm providing high-end back office support in banking, financial services, insurance, entertainment and telecommunications to companies based predominantly in the USA, Australia and India.

“iEnergizer’s debut is the latest example of how over the past five years AIM has become a popular equity financing source for companies from India’s high growth sectors such as infrastructure, conventional and renewable energy, and media and entertainment,” said Ibukun Adebayo, Head of Business Development - India, Middle East & Africa, at the London Stock Exchange. (more…)

IT services firm Cognizant Technology Solutions is on the prowl and the country’s largest BPO could be on its radar. According to industry sources, the company has been doing due diligence of BPO leader Genpact to acquire a controlling stake for close to a month. If Cognizant ends up acquiring Genpact, it would be one of the largest technology deals in India, redefining the pecking order in India’s IT industry. The Cognizant-Genpact combine could possibly knock off Infosys Technologies from its No.2 position in the industry, or come within striking distance.

“Cognizant is carrying out its due diligence of Genpact. The process started a few weeks ago,” sources aware of the development told FE. “Investors in Genpact may be looking for a 30% premium over its market value,” they said.

BPO constitutes about 5% of Cognizant’s revenues and the firm is aggressively looking to plug the gap in its services portfolio. Genpact was in talks with Infosys as well, but the conservative blue chip had reservations on the high valuations as well as the impact on its margins, sources said. Genpact’s margins are way below Infy’s corporate average. Source

Good news for those aspiring to work in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector! Now any one seeking a job in a BPO can apply dialling a toll-free number to key in their resumes from their mobile phone.

The aspirants can also record their voice on the toll-free number, once this is done, the mobile number gets registered into the system.

This service, DialBPOJobs, is available in five cities - New Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore. After finding the initial response encouraging, the New Delhi-based job portal company Times Business Solutions Ltd. (TBSL) has now decided to expand its service to smaller cities.

“We will soon start promoting our new service to tier-2 and tier-3 cities which generally feed BPO units with talent,” DialBPOJobs head Sudhir Pai told media. (more…)

Infosys BPO plans to double its headcount in the Philippines over the next 12 months seeing a sizeable talent pool in legal process outsourcing and financial services, where the company doesn’t have a presence.

“Currently, we offer only customer services in the Philippines, which we are planning to expand into areas like legal, financial and accounting outsourcing. Philippines offers a market of quality talent pool in these areas,” said Ritesh Idnani, chief operating officer, Infosys BPO.

The company, which started its Philippines operations in June 2007, expects revenue contribution from the operations to increase from 5-6% of its total revenue to 8-10% in the next 18 to 24 months.

“We are looking at expanding our footprints in the existing locations globally rather than exploring new geographies. We are also planning to scale up our operations in China and Brazil,” added Idnani. (more…)

Spain-headquartered business process outsourcing (BPO) company Accelya has acquired a 35.61 per cent stake in Kale Consultants, a Mumbai-based information technology services and solutions company, for around Rs 97 crore. The deal valued each share of Kale Consultants at Rs 172. Accelya bought the stake from the promoters of Kale Consultants.

Kale Consultants’ shares today closed two per cent higher at Rs 142.70 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The shares had touched an intra-day high of Rs 147.  Accelya will announce an open offer to acquire an additional 20 per cent stake in the company. The company will remain listed on the BSE and the National Stock Exchange.

Vipul Jain, chief executive officer and managing director of Kale Consultant, will continue to head the company. “The promoters (Narendra Kale and Vipul Jain and family) have exited the company. But I will continue to head the firm. Rather, I will be investing some of the proceeds from the sale into the holding company,” said Jain. (more…)

Infosys BPO on Friday said it will increase the total headcount of its Poland operations to 1,500 in next one year. “The company currently employees 950 people, atleast in next twelve months, we should get to a level of around 1,500,” Infosys BPO MD and CEO Dandapani Swaminathan said here.

Besides the company would double the investment in the region (Poland) over the next two years, Swaminathan said here.

He expects to “double the investment in the region (Poland) over the next two years, taking base level around USD 10 million.” On the issue of attrition, Swaminathan added that at the place like Poland these are manageable.

Asking on the ban by the Ohio government on outsourcing of government IT projects outside the United States he said, “its not only about shifting jobs its also about driving efficiency. This will be even out as we move forward.” (more…)

Taking the first concrete step towards curtailing the rising incidents of crime against business process outsourcing (BPO) and IT staffers, the Regional Transport Office has made uniform compulsory for cab drivers who are offering services to the employees of IT-BPO companies in the city.

RTO stated that Government of Maharashtra has defined the pattern for uniform and I-cards. Now, it is mandatory for the drivers to wear uniforms and carry i-cards. The drivers can be identified by a pink shirt and black trouser. On the back drop of increasing crimes against the female employees in the city, the RTO has made it compulsory. In last two years, few criminal cases have been registered in the city where the police detected involvement of cab drivers. IT professional Jyoti Kumari Chaudhari was raped and killed at Pune in November 2007.

Pune city has a IT-BPO community of more than one lakh and some 11,000 cars and jeeps are used as pick-up and drop vehicles for them by the 32 units. Recenlty, state minister for transport Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil had assured that the uniform will be made compulsory for all the cab drivers. A meeting of RTO officials was held in the month of July and the decision for compulsion of uniform and I-cards was taken in this meeting. Source

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has become the second-largest insurance business process outsourcing (BPO) provider in the UK, after winning two deals worth £250 million (around Rs1,800 crore). UK-based Capita is the number one player in this space.

Diligenta, a subsidiary of TCS, had yesterday announced that it had acquired Unisys Insurance Services (UISL) from Unisys Corporation, in lieu of which the company received business worth £250 million for the next six years. With this, Diligenta won business from Phoenix Group (earlier known as Pearl Group) and Old Mutual International. Phoenix Group is an existing customer of Diligenta.
 
Diligenta is already in talks with a few more insurance players for similar deals. “The cycle time for deals to materialise in case of Diligenta is six months to a year, especially for similar deals. So, in the next 12-18 months, we will have something to share. But winning these deals validates our strategy,” said Phiroz Vandrevala, chairman of Diligenta and executive director at TCS. (more…)