Software exporter L&T Infotech, which has been lagging its larger rivals in growth rates and profitability, wants to add BPO capability  to its portfolio of offerings so it can provide customers with the full range of services starting from application development and testing to back-office processing. The company has appointed one of the big four consulting firms to advise on its BPO strategy. L&T Infotech is a fully-owned subsidiary of engineering giant Larsen & Toubro.

“We want to be able to offer to the full range of services. We already have infrastructure management, independent testing services and application development and maintenance,” said Sudip Banerjee, CEO of L&T Infotech. The consulting firm is expected to submit its report on what sectors and services L&T Infotech should focus on for BPO as well as advise it on suitable delivery locations. In addition, it will also advise the firm on whether acquisitions can be an entry strategy into BPO services.

Wipro and IBM have used their acquisitions of Spectramind and Daksh BPO Services respectively to successfully enter the BPO business in the past. However, Mr Banerjee, a former Wipro executive, said such a strategy, involving the acquisition of diversified third-party BPO provider, was unfit for the current environment when BPO was already a mature industry segment . He said the company was open to niche acquisitions such as captive back-office units of mutlinationals for building its BPO business. (more…)

Aditya Birla Minacs, the outsourcing arm of the Aditya Birla Group, plans to add at least 4,500 seats globally by the end of the fiscal 2010-11, with maximum seats going to the American region.

The company is now gung-ho about the growth potential of the north American region and the prospects in future. After clients such as General Motors adjusted their businesses during the recession period, which affected Minacs’ revenues in the negative, the company believes that things are looking up.

Deepak J Patel, chief executive officer of Minacs, told Financial Chronicle that North America is the growth area and the focus would continue to be there. “We have around 6,000 seats in America and the potential is for 3,000 more seats, which we plan to add by the end of the next fiscal year,” he said. (more…)

BPO services provider Firstsource Solutions on Wednesday reported a nearly three-fold jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 33.31 crore  for the third quarter ended December 31, 2009. As per the Indian accounting standards, total income from operations rose to Rs 490.85 crore for the October-December quarter, from Rs 444.20 crore in the same period previous fiscal, Firstsource Solutions said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

“Performance in the year to date continues to be strong. In the nine months of this fiscal we have seen both growth in revenues and improvement in profitability,” Firstsource MD & CEO Ananda Mukerji said. The company’s employee strength stood at 27,308 as of December 31, 2009.

On the standalone basis, the company posted a net profit of Rs 10.18 crore for the quarter ended December 31, while it had a net loss of Rs 94 lakh in the same period last fiscal. Shares of Firstsource Solutions were trading at Rs 33.50 on BSE, up 0.90% from previous close. Source

Sparsh BPO Services, a domestic BPO subsidiary of Intelenet Global Services, has launched a delivery centre in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. The new centre will service India’s telecommunications services operator to provide customer support services in the circles of UP (east and west) and Uttaranchal.

The centre already has an existing headcount of 1,200 agents. Susir Kumar, MD and CEO, Intelenet Global Services, said, “In addition to expanding our footprint in North India, this centre will also strengthen our delivery capability in the telecom vertical.”
 
Radhika Balasubramanian, COO, Sparsh, added, “Dehradun offers good connectivity with the major cities in North and also provides a young talent pool qualified with several north Indian languages including English, Hindi, Punjabi, Dogri, Himachal, etc. Our foray in the city will provide us access to a skilled workforce while providing employment opportunities to potential domestic candidates.”

Sparsh currently has over 40 client relationships with leading multinationals across telecom, banking, insurance, consumer durables, retail, media, aviation and public sectors. It has a presence in West and South. Facilities had been set in Thane and Bangalore in 2009, Puducherry in 2008. Source

Unitech Wireless, where Telenor is the majority partner, is close to finalising business process outsourcing (BPO) contracts with two vendors — Genpact and Intelenet Global Services. Unitech Wireless is looking to launch mobile services across the country.

Sources familiar with the development said the company is expected to shortly sign contracts for the North with Genpact and with Intelenet for the South. Unitech is also in dialogue with the Essar group-promoted Aegis BPO for the East, according to two people with knowledge of the deal.

Unlike IT contracts, which are given out in bulk, BPO contracts start off on a smaller scale and increase as telecom operators bring in more subscribers. Unitech has already awarded the IT outsourcing contract to Wipro earlier this year in a deal that is reported to be around Rs 2,500 crore. (more…)

Tech Mahindra is banking on subsidiary Mahindra Satyam’s strengths for its BPO business to take off. “At Tech Mahindra, a lot of investments are going in BPO services, especially in the reconciliation and settlement processes. Since these are connected to a firm’s ERP and BI applications, Satyam’s ERP capabilities are going to be very useful,” Atul Kanwar, president, European Union, Africa, Middle East, APAC and India markets for Mahindra Satyam said.

“We have seen significant traction recently as far as number of customer wins for Mahindra Satyam from the existing customer base of Tech Mahindra is concerned. But I cannot give you the exact number for confidentiality reasons,” Kanwar added

Tech Mahindra, which has around 400 clients, has lately been faced with revenue side worries in the last few quarters, with the share of business from British Telecom (BT), which contributes nearly 39% of its revenues, declining. (more…)

Wipro BPO, the BPO arm of global IT giant Wipro, and CT Group of Institutions have joined hands to host a Mega Job Festival for the youth 
of the region to explore a career opportunity in the fast growing BPO Industry.

The “Job Fest” will be held on August 22 and August 23 at the CT Group of Institutions.

Announcing the launch of the Job Fest, Vikas Dua (Head - Campus Initiatives) of Wipro BPO said, “It is our privilege to join hands with CT Group of Institutions, one of India’s most reputed education institutions, and offer career opportunities to the youth. We are always on the outlook to partner with quality institutes to meet our rapid growth of talent. Wipro BPO provides the talent pool an opportunity to create a career in the fast growing BPO industry - where students can choose locations from across the country where we have centres”.

Also, on the occasion, Charanjit Singh Channi, Chairman of CT Group of Institutions said “The association with Wipro BPO re-iterates our commitment to career-oriented education. We are pleased to become a platform for enabling youth to take up rewarding careers with such a leading organization.”

Asked whether there was any adverse impact of the economic recession on BPO sector, Dua said that there was not much adverse impact on the BPO industry and rather the industry spread its wings. Source

IT firm Tech Mahindra on Thursday said that it has opened a new centre in Chandigarh with an initial capacity of 1,000 seats.  The set up will focus on providing end-to-end customer service delivery to global telecom service providers, Tech Mahindra said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Spread across 15 acres, the centre would have about 1,000 seats in the initial ramp up, with 500 seats at start and another 500 by the end of September 2009.

The centre will cater to both international and domestic clients, the filing added. “Chandigarh is a preferred destination for its BPO and IT culture, state-of-art infrastructure, local support from the government, availability of skilled manpower and low rate of attrition,” Tech Mahindra President (Corporate Affairs) Sujit Baksi said.

The firm already has a centre in Chandigarh and the new centre would be equipped with world class infrastructure. The firm also has BPO centres in Kolkata, Noida, Pune and Chennai and two overseas centres in Belfast and New Castle.  “This centre allows us to spread our operations in Northern India in a big way and we are keen to tap the local talent pool in this region to make this centre a major hub,” Baksi added.  Source

To give rural BPOs a major boost, the Government of Karnataka plans to set up 100 rural BPO centres and create 1 lakh jobs in the next five years. Ashok Kumar C Manoli, state IT/BT secretary, said, The BPO centres will be an ideal vehicle to carry technology and financial empowerment to thousands of rural youth across the state. The idea is to create a rural BPO cluster, which later can be integrated with similar projects across the country.

The first such centre has already come up at Baburayana Koppal in Srirangapatna, near Mysore. Three more BPO centres are planned at Salgame, Shiggaon, Gundalupet in the state in the next couple of months.

 The exercise is aimed at promoting jobs for rural youth with minimum computer knowledge and belonging to small towns of 1 lakh population. To start with each of these centres will have 100 seats. The government has set aside Rs 40 crore to develop infrastructure in these towns, said Manoli. We have recently floated tenders for the second phase inviting applications from entrepreneurs who are interested in rural BPO business. We have already received 124 responses, against 118 applications in the first round, he said. (more…)

A security guard of a call centre died after the cab in which he was accompanying the firm’s executives lost control and plunged down a 
flyover in Moti Bagh area of south Delhi in wee hours of Saturday. The cab was on way from Gurgaon to Ghaziabad to drop executives.

It belongs to a private owner who had given it on rent to the call centre in Gurgaon. The deceased, identified as Satish Kumar (25), was sitting in the front and was killed on the spot after the Tavera (UP17/6378) overturned, said a senior police officer.

The employees present in the cab told the police that the driver was overspeeding and did not slow down even after repeated warnings, police said. According to the employees, the car after taking a turn at the Motibagh flyover was heading towards Shantipath from where they were supposed to go to Ghaziabad. (more…)