India BPO Outsourcing: June 2008 Archives

Firstsource will provide a suite of BPO services covering both voice and back-office in areas such as customer accounting, VAS provisioning, fraud and credit monitoring, the company said on Wednesday.

Firstsource's services will also cover collections, customer service and customer retention, amongst others, from its centres in Chennai and Mumbai, the release said. The company will also set up centres in Vashi and Chennai for Airtel and expects to have over 1,000 employees in the first year focussed on providing services in English and eight other regional languages to Airtel's customers.

Full Story: Firstsource, Airtel in 3-year outsourcing pact

The broad idea is to help freshers and high-potential employees develop soft skills not generally taught at universities, and simultaneously increase retention rates in an industry that has attrition rates between 30 and 50 per cent.

The industry, according to Nasscom estimates, accounts for almost $11 billion and employs slightly over 700,000 professionals (in terms of direct employment). The Aegis BPO Ace programme, which addresses work-life issues, is based on employee feedback. The company initially invested close to Rs 6 crore to design the curriculum.

Full Story: BPOs design in-house curricula to train staff

US-based buyout fund Carlyle, Providence Equity Partners, Warburg Pincus and Blackstone are understood to be exploring a buyout of Temasek's holding in Mumbai-based pure-play business process outsourcing firm Firstsource.

The news triggered the company's share price to rise 6.76 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) to close at Rs 43.45 on Tuesday. Warburg Pincus has a stake in WNS, a BPO company, while Blackstone has a majority stake in Intelenet. "By the end of the day, they are private equity funds and they will look at monetising their holdings in portfolio companies," said a source.

Full Story: Firstsource suitors eye Temasek's holding

] proposed 6 million tonne steel plant in Kalinganagar, Orissa, the Tata group is setting up a business process outsourcing unit on the proposed site.

The rural BPO centre will be established by the Tata Business Support Services -- the BPO wing and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons -- in partnership with Tata Steel Rural Development Society -- a corporate NGO managed by the Tata Group for the last 60 years. To start with, it is expected to employ around 200 people. Sources close to the development said the company has already recruited the first batch of the executives for the BPO unit, who are expected to undergo two months of training at TBSS' headquarters in Hyderabad.

Full Story: Tata rural BPO to come up near Orissa steel site

Aegis BPO Services, an Essar Group business process outsourcing (BPO) company, is close to acquiring an 8,000-seater BPO firm in the Philippines. The exact size of the deal is not clear.

Aegis has been bullish on inorganic growth as its races to reach a turnover of $500 million (around Rs 2,000 crore) by 2010. Aparup Sengupta, managing director and CEO of Aegis BPO, had told Business Standard that the company was in talks with 7-10 companies for a 'strategic fit' and was looking at firms in the US, South America and the Philippines. The company has also stated its intent to invest anything between Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) and Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) to acquire these companies.

Full Story: Aegis eyes Philippine BPO

For instance, a digital advertising contract between India's second largest IT services provider Infosys Technologies and a major American newspaper group is threatening to become a rallying point for the brigade to regroup and renew attacks on outsourcing of management information systems (MIS) and key operations-related work to India.

Infosys Technologies, according to sources, signed an advertising outsourcing deal with Missouri-based Kansas City Star sometime last month. The daily, a part of the McClatchy Company that also publishes the Miami Herald, will outsource advertising production work for its new media/digital business to Bangalore. ] . "While the deal is not substantial in terms of payback, over the next three to five years, City Star has been looking at gaining the economy of scale in its production set-up over the past year by outsourcing digital media production across a few of its publications to different vendors," the source said.

Full Story: Media outsourcing attracts ire of US brigade

IT-BPO firms, which are already facing a US slowdown and currency fluctuations, are now busy in firming up their plans to tackle a rising inflation in the country and its impact on salary, sales, general and administrative (SG&A) and travel costs, which can dent their profit margins.

] do it during the year. If inflation continues throughout the year the firms would have to effect a mid-term hike or raise the salary by a good measure in the next financial year. Next in line comes transport costs as many transport associations are planning to increase their rates. The Maharashtra Call Centre Drivers' and Owners' Association (MCCDOA) has asked for an increase in remuneration. "All BPO units pay us Rs 6 per kilometre. Considering the increase in petrol and diesel prices, we now want the charges hiked to Rs 10 per kilometre," said Nana Kshirsagar, president, MCCDOA.

Full Story: BPOs grapple with inflation