SlashSupport Setting Up 250 Seater BPO Training School In Chennai

SlashSupport, a part of CSS group, has announced the setting of an exclusive 250 seat BPO training facility in Teynampet, in the heart of Chennai. The move is aimed at addressing the technology skill development as well as personality development communication and leadership skills.

SlashSupport,having over 3000 employees, is in the process of hiring over 2000 professionals to take its headcount to over 5000 over the next 12 months. It has four offshore facilities in Chennai, one in Coimbatore, an onsite facility in the US and a redundancy center in Singapore.

The BPO training facility is equipped with the latest hardware, software, training aides and other tools, including a hi-tech lab and library.

“The move to set up an exclusive training facility reiterates our commitment to provide world class learning infrastructure to our employees and to offer them a long term career path at the CSS Group. This exclusive training facility will take SlashSupport’s training initiatives and focus on operational excellence into the next level. The facility will offer indepth Technology Training that encourage engineers to gain broader levels of proficiency across multiple technologies leading to enhanced troubleshooting effectiveness as well as a richer career path in technology. The training facility will also offer trial runs for Technical Support Executives to work in a stringently monitored near real-time environment under the supervision of experienced supervisors before taking live calls on their own,” said Shiva Ramani, co-founder, CSS Group and CEO, SlashSupport.

While SlashSupport’s Voice Support training will cover training on various support center tools, telephone etiquette, call handling, listening and questioning techniques, the Email support training initiative will cover understanding, questioning & responding techniques, language, grammar and localisation of responses.

Source : http://www.efytimes.com/fullnews.asp?edid=12680

Convergys Continues HR BPO Service Center Expansion in Asia Pacific Region

Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), a global leader in providing customer care, human resources, and billing services, today announced the continued expansion of its Human Resources Business Process Outsourcing (HR BPO) business in the Asia Pacific region.

Convergys has added to its global HR BPO capacity by opening new or expanding existing service centers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Bangalore, India; Dalian, China; and Singapore. These service centers provide high quality, world-class HR business process outsourcing (BPO) services to more than 150 global and regional Convergys clients.

"Asia Pacific has garnered a strong reputation as an offshoring location of choice, and having these service centers is an important step in the expansion of Convergys' presence in this rapidly growing market," said Nalin Singh, Vice President and Managing Director of Asia Pacific Operations for Convergys. "As part of our strategic expansion efforts, we operate in high-tech locations with a highly skilled talent pool to grow our client base and meet the needs of our clients. Convergys is committed to the Asia Pacific region and we are leveraging the local expertise of our service centers to benefit our clients worldwide."

Convergys' Asia Pacific service centers provide a broad scope of HR BPO services such as benefits and leave administration, learning and performance management, recruiting and staffing administration, and payroll administration for clients from multiple industries including finance and retail. These service centers add to Convergys' existing Asia Pacific presence, which includes 16 offices and over 17,500 employees, and provides the needed infrastructure for the continued growth of HR BPO services in the region.

Convergys also recently announced the opening of its Budapest, Hungary, service center, bringing the total number of Convergys' HR BPO service centers to 12 worldwide.

Convergys is a leader in developing global HR business process outsourcing solutions. Through live and self-service channels, Convergys manages 1.1 million employee contacts every month, provides assistance in more than 35 languages, and works with client associates in nearly 70 countries. Convergys is Outthinking and Outdoing [tm] on behalf of its clients every day.

Source : http://www.convergys.com

PeopleSupport Files Shelf Registration Statement

PeopleSupport, Inc. (Nasdaq: PSPT), a business process outsourcing (BPO) provider that offers customer management, transcription and captioning, accounts receivable management and additional BPO services, announced today that it has filed a Form S-3 shelf registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The shelf registration statement allows PeopleSupport to issue from time to time an aggregate of up to $100 million of its securities, including common stock, preferred stock, warrants and debt securities. The terms of any offering under the shelf registration statement will be established at the time of the offering. No current offering is contemplated. PeopleSupport may use the shelf in the future to raise funds for capital expenditures, acquisitions or other corporate purposes, as further described in a prospectus or prospectus supplement filed at the time of an offering.

The S-3 registration statement has been filed with SEC but has not yet become effective. Securities may not be sold under the registration statement, nor may offers to buy be accepted, prior to the time it becomes effective. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state.

Source : http://www.peoplesupport.com

TeleTech Completes Acquisition of Direct Alliance Corporation

TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: TTEC), a leading global business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, today announced it has completed the acquisition of Direct Alliance Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Insight Enterprises, Inc. (Nasdaq: NSIT), a leading provider of information technology solutions.
Throughout its 13-year history, Direct Alliance has enabled some of the world's best-known hardware, software, and electronics manufacturers to expand market reach and increase revenue using Internet-based systems that allow customers to transact business in a collaborative e-commerce environment. Direct Alliance offers outsourced sales and account management services that help the Fortune 500 efficiently serve small and midsize businesses, a segment expected to reach $400 billion in 2006. In addition, Direct Alliance enables its clients to penetrate disparate divisions of large commercial and government accounts.
"Direct Alliance's ability to offer a professionally-oriented sales and account management capability is an extremely attractive extension of our business offering," said Kenneth Tuchman, chairman and chief executive officer of TeleTech. "This acquisition further strengthens our commitment to growth and our ability to provide a more comprehensive suite of outsourced marketing, sales, and customer management solutions to both TeleTech's and Direct Alliance's large multinational clients."
In 2005, Direct Alliance generated revenue of $77.4 million. TeleTech believes the acquisition will be slightly accretive to GAAP earnings during the first 12 months of combined operations.

Source : http://www.teletech.com

Global Opens Philippines' First Business Process Outsourcing Firm in Manila

Operations have been launched for Proview Global Administration Inc. (Global) in Manila, Philippines. Global is the first business process outsourcing (BPO) firm in the Philippine’s that specifically caters to benefits administration for employers in the United States.

Initially designed to be a dedicated provider of services to ProView Advanced Solutions Inc., a third-party employee benefits administrator in Irvine, Global has recently expanded to offer services to other small- and medium-sized organizations. This expansion is positioned as bringing the value of offshoring previously available only to large, multinational companies to small and middle markets.

By providing tactical, back office administration tasks, Global hopes to generate increased demand for its services by enhancing U.S. companies’ operations, allowing these companies to focus entirely on delivering quality products and services.

By using Global, ProView Advanced Solutions has been able to center its resources on client relationship management, improving customer satisfaction, maintaining strict audit controls and delivering higher quality service. Additionally, ProView Advanced Solutions is continuing to grow its client base and the lower the cost of high-quality labor provided by Global, the better equipped ProView Advanced Solutions will be to remain a highly scalable, cost-competitive service provider.

Michael Rivera, president, ProView Advanced Solutions and ProView Global Administration, noted that business process outsourcing on a global stage is entering a new phase of evolution and most companies today consider outsourcing part of their business process as a critical component of their strategic plans. As a result, these companies are now smarter about how they execute on this strategy and ProView Global is well positioned to fill the needs of these companies.

As a full-service global outsourcing firm, ProView Global offers back office support of benefit administration outsourcing and data management services. Companies using ProView Global are able to outsource critical tactical tasks in order to focus on core business initiatives that drive revenues.

ProView Advanced Solutions provides employee resource/call center, self-funded dental and vision plans, flexible spending accounts, billing consolidation and reconciliation, record keeping, data transmission, electronic and manual enrollment and COBRA administration solutions.


The call center market in the Philippines is quickly expanding, although it is facing threats from its neighbors who are attempting to narrow the competitive gap. The opening of Global’s operations is an indication that the Philippine market is still viable and offers certain benefits for Global to be able to effectively serve its customers from this location.

The services that Global is offering will enable organizations to focus on core business activities in order to drive main business strategies that are intended to increase market share and potentially profits.

By Susan J. Campbell ( TMCnet Contributing Editor )
Source : http://news.tmcnet.com/news/2006/06/30/1702107.htm

HSBC BPO Fraudster Arrested By Bangalore Police

The Bangalore police have arrested one 24-year old Nadeem Kashmiri, on charges of having leaked confidential customer data from a BPO of HSBC, resulting in a loss of almost 233,000 pounds (Rs 1.95 crores) to the bank's UK-based account holders.

HSBC says it takes its data protection responsibilities very seriously, and that hence it has initiated legal action against Kashmiri, who until earlier this month was an employee at HSBC's Bangalore global service center.

Kashmiri was an employee of HSBC Electronic Data Processing India (HDPI), an offshore unit of the multinational bank. The bank approached the police on June 22, once it was convinced about his involvement. The police had been on the lookout for him since then.

Meanwhile, Kashmiri is accused of passing-on confidential information pertaining to certain HSBC customers in the UK that was used to access the bank accounts of the victims through telephone banking services. Impersonating genuine account holders, the fraudsters extracted funds out of these accounts. They also carried out fraudulent transactions through the ATM and debit cards of the victims. It is reported that a gang of scamsters in the UK had paid Kashmiri for carrying out this fraud.

The fraud was uncovered by HSBC's own security teams, when some customers complained to the bank about discrepancies in their accounts, ultimately leading to Nadeem Kashmiri's suspension in April pending HSBC's investigations.

HSBC, convinced that Nadeem Kashmiri had perpetrated the fraud, terminated his employment, and reported the crime to the Bangalore police. HSBC is assisting the Indian police in their investigations, and the bank intends to pursue Kashmiri's conviction as vigorously as possible.

The Bangalore police will be in touch with their UK counterparts to solve the case; and HSBC is in touch with affected customers who have been assured of full re-imbursement of losses.

Source : http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=74292&cat_id=582

Wipro BPO to expand international footprint to include Vietnam

NEW DELHI: Wipro BPO is planning to start a new center in Vietnam, making the company the latest to join a long list of companies exploring cheaper destinations to cut costs.

After Romania, this is the second global destination that the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) provider will be setting up operations in. While the company angles for large outsourcing projects, it believes a global footprint will help it achieve this.
"When you talk about an overall package, India is still the most cost-effective but we would like to be a full service provider with a global footprint," Wipro BPO chief financial officer Manish Dugar said.
Companies that have already taken the Wipro route, include ICICI OneSource, announcing its decision to explore China and Vietnam, IBM Daksh, having a presence in the Philippines, Genpact setting up a base in China and similarly, two BPOs, WNS, Quatrro and Office Tiger having a center each in Sri Lanka.

Wipro BPO plans to introduce its existing clients to the new site in Vietnam and then attract new customers there as well.

Most BPO companies are foraying into locations in Asia for cost benefits centered on people or infrastructure while the European forays have more to do with developing multi-lingual capabilities and expanding on the near-shore and offshore models.

According to industry experts, another reason for BPO service providers to look at cheap locations outside India is because India's tax advantage disappears in '09, while in countries such as Malaysia, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, it is valid for another 10 years.

Meanwhile, Raman Roy's Quatrro, after setting up operations in Sri Lanka, is said to be headed to the Far East. "Sri Lanka is at the same stage that India was eight years ago with good language skills available at low costs," Roy said.


Agencies

Source: http://www.siliconindia.com/shownewsdata.asp?newsno=32359&newscat=Technology

Pecon Software to set up call centre, to invest Rs 25 cr

Kolkata, June 25: Kolkata based Pecon Software Ltd today announced setting up of a 60 seater state-of-the-art call centre which would later be expanded to a 200 seater centre.

The company would also invest Rs 25 crore for expansion in software and ITES services over the next two years.

"We have plans to invest Rs 10 crore by the end of 2007 in the first phase. This would include setting up a new 25,000 sq ft software and ITES facility AR Rajarhat," Pecon managing director Mahesh Shah said at the inauguration today.

"In the second phase, an additional Rs 15 crore would be invested in 2008. We are also planning to setup a software and IT centre at Siliguri," he added.

The company claimed to have captive orders from some telecom, dish TV and mortgage companies for marketing their products and services.

Shah said initially, the BPO would employ a workforce of 200 people with three shifts a day.

Pecon has two divisions, one software and another BPO. The company also has plans to diversify into the KPO (knowledge process outsourcing) sector.

Aditya Vikram Birla Group to acquire Minacs Worldwide for $125 million

Aditya Vikram Birla Group’s Transworks has confirmed in a statement that they are planning to acquire Canada’s largest back office provider Minacs Worldwide for $125 million.

This deal would help the company become the third largest BPO player in the Indian market. They are currently lying in the fifteenth position.
The acquisition would also help the company improve their revenues six times to over $300 million. The combined entity would have a worker base of around 10,000 employees.

Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla spoke about this new development: “We will be initially buying out the promoter holding of 46.4% in the company and then make an open offer to acquire the entire shareholding.”
The deal is expected to be complete by august this year.


Source : http://business.techwhack.com/770/minacs-worldwide/

Tata pays $220 Million for Eight O'Clock

Tata Coffee, the largest coffee plantation company in India, has acquired Eight O'Clock Coffee, a popular US brand, for $220m, in a move that accelerates the Bangalore-based company's move from the commodity end of the industry to higher-margin brands.

EOC becomes the latest foreign asset to fall into the hands of Tata, the acquisitive Mumbai-based steel to technology-services group that has made globalisation a strategic objective.

Tata Coffee said EOC, with net sales of $109m for 2005 and the third largest coffee brand by volume behind Folgers and Maxwell House, would be an entry ticket into the $21bn US coffee market.

Mr RK Krishna Kumar, chairman of Tata Tea, which holds a 51 per cent stake in Tata Coffee, said the acquisition would complement the group's existing brands, Tata Tea, Tetley and Tata Coffee.

Tata Coffee manages 23 estates spread over 7,000 hectares across the southern state of Karnataka, better known for its IT capital Bangalore, producing 10m kg of coffee a year. It is India's second-largest exporter of instant coffee.

The acquisition is the largest by Tata Coffee and follows a trend in both scale and direction set by its parent, which five years ago acquired UK tea group Tetley in a leveraged buy-out, the first by an Indian company.

Since then Indian companies have been active acquirers, this year alone investing more than $2.3bn on nearly 40 overseas transactions.

Also at the weekend, TransWorks, part of the Aditya Birla commodities group, strengthened its late entry into business process outsourcing by agreeing to acquire for $125m the listed, and considerably larger, Canadian outsourcing company Minacs Worldwide. The total acquisition cost will more than double with Birla's open offer to buy the Minacs' outstanding shares.

Birla's acquisition is part of a wider move by Indian BPO companies to move closer to their clients, a response to criticism of offshore centres in India and because rising Indian costs are eliminating the industry's traditional advantage.

Apple, the US technology company, this month said it would close its Indian service centre, citing rising local costs as one factor. ICICI One-Source, a fast-growing BPO company in Mumbai, last week said it would be setting up two BPO units in Ireland, closer to key clients

By : Khozem Merchant in Mumbai
Source : http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13542838/

Genpact emerges the BPO No 1

MUMBAI: The business process outsourcing (BPO) juggernaut is rolling on with the big companies getting bigger, and the smaller or mid-sized companies either being acquired or muddling around. ET studied the growth of the top BPO companies in India, most of which are privately held and do not reveal their revenues.

After much cajoling ET was able collect some numbers for the top 7 BPO companies in India. Genpact still remains the largest BPO company from India. Genpact’s revenues for the year ended December 31, ’05 were $490m. Genpact has signed 10 large customers over the last 18 months and the revenues would start flowing in from this year onwards.

The company is projecting a growth rate of 25% which will take its revenues by the end of December 31, ’06 to between $620m and $640m. Genpact plans to have more than 25,000 employees by the year-end. The second largest BPO company, Wipro BPO, has revenues in excess of $173.7m.

Wipro continues on its path of high growth and high attrition and maintains its ranking in the industry. Wipro is followed by HCL BPO with revenues of $124m. The company services primarily voice dominated areas like sales and marketing, tech support, collection services and rule-based calls.

In back office operations, it has expertise in F&A, HR services, transaction processing and order management. HCL BPO has 61 Fortune 500 clients. At number four is ICICI OneSource with revenues of $123m. The company has consolidated its acquisition and is now poised for growth.

The major strategic shift which took place during the year for ICICI OneSource was the US-based Metavante buying a 11.5% stake in it. Metavante is expected to drive exponential growth as its sales engine in the US kicks in to drive the offshore outsourcing market.

The biggest surprise this year is IBM-Daksh, which is in fifth place. The company had slowed down for a year or so after the acquisition by IBM in ’04. The company has almost tripled in size in the last 18 months, and industry observers claim it is generating revenues upwards of $120m from India.

In the last 18 months or so, IBM-Daksh has been on an overdrive and has made its way back into the top of the charts. Sanjeev Agarwal, the founder of the company, also left the company last week. Now, only Pavan Vaish from the original founding team remains with the company.
Progeon, at number six, has also gone through a lot of tough and tumble during the year. Infosys bought back Citigroup’s stake in the company and ex-Citibanker Akshaya Bhargava went back to the investment world. The Infosys BPO arm employs around 7,000 people and has a client base of 22.

Last year, ET’s BPO ranking had included Sutherland Tech as the second largest company with revenues of $120m. Though, Sutherland is a US company, it is dependent on India for its BPO operations. Sutherland’s total revenues were $200m and its India revenues were $70m.

In a like-to-like comparison, Sutherland on the basis of its India revenues, drops from the second spot to the seventh and the last spot in the ranking. WNS, which used to publicly disclose its revenues has stopped doing so and hence has been dropped from the ranking this year.

Source : http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1679136.cms