• November 2006
  • Outsourcing: India a big threat to UK
    The opposition to outsourcing of jobs to low-cost locations is intensifying further in the UK with a large majority of Britons saying no more jobs should be moved abroad, while China and India have been termed as the biggest threats to the British economy.
  • BPOs keep close watch on the ‘evil eye’ next door
    The sea of BPOs silhouetting the Gurgaon skyline may spell big bucks for commercial and residential realtors, but for BPOs the crowding-out appears to be getting too close for comfort.
  • Firstsource files for IPO to sell 9.56-cr shares
    ICICI OneSource has filed with SEBI for selling 9.56 crore equity shares through an initial public offering. This constitutes 23 per cent of the post issue share capital of the company.

    The BPO company has also been rechristened as `Firstsource'.

  • Azure plans B’lore, Hyderabad centres
    Ahmedabad-based BPO company Azure-Styx Infosoft is fast expanding its wings. After a soon-to-be-announced collaboration with a US-based Rs 1,600-crore firm, the company is now setting up a new centre in Hyderabad and is also planning one in Bangalore. The total investment for these expansions will be around Rs 15-25 crore.
  • Brady Corp opens BPO units in India
    US-based Brady Corporation on Tuesday said it has set up its manufacturing and BPO centres in Bangalore. The new entity, to work under the name of 'Brady India Private Limited', would manufacture products as well as provide solutions for the mobile phone and electronic manufacturing industry, a company release said.
  • Hero Mindmine plans to go overseas
    Hero Mindmine, a division of Hero Corporate Services Ltd that is engaged in training for call centres and other services-oriented industries, plans to go overseas. With clients like Accenture, ABN Amro, Wipro-BPO and Progeon, it is keen to enter the Middle East with a training academy.
  • Quatrro, Capita in race to acquire Liberata
    It’s another global BPO acquisition in the offing and this time the target is one of the largest UK-based outsourcing companies, Liberata. According to sources, Raman Roy’s Quatrro, UK’s top outsourcing company, Capita, and a large Indian IT services company, are vying for it.
  • How Wipro does it?
    Wipro started doing this a year back. Called People Pulse, the people tracker colour-codes every Wipro employee — red, amber and green. Red means highly likely to leave. Amber is the middle zone, and green the ones who are most unlikely to leave. They are tracked all the time. The colour zone helps the company focus on them better. Those in the high-risk zone, red, are under constant watch.
  • TCS signs $65 mn deal with Somerfield
    Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., India's top software services exporter, said on Wednesday it had signed a seven-year, $65 million IT services deal with British retailer Somerfield.
  • 'Easy to use' products are in
    Outsourcing Product Development is set to emerge as a $8-11 billion industry by 2009 from the current $3 billion market estimates. Sensing the opportunity here, Indian OPD players are now focusing on 'usability' as a core offering to move up the value chain. The premise is that only 35 per cent of any application is utilised by end-users. The remaining 65 per cent lacks 'usability'.
  • Tax advisor shortage: US returns prepared in India
    As many as 360,000 US tax returns were prepared in India in 2006, according to a report prepared by Pune-based ValueNotes, a leading provider of business intelligence and research.
  • Wipro BPO gets Infy's Sethi
    Wipro BPO, the BPO arm of Wipro Limited , today announced the appointment of Ramit Sethi as senior vice president - Knowledge Services and Capital Markets. In his new role he would focus to consolidate and grow Wipro BPO’s Capital Markets and Knowledge Services business.
  • Contact Center Outsourcing: EMEA Bound
    The Middle Eastern and African contact center outsourcing markets will see tremendous growth, suggests a recent report by Frost & Sullivan. Following the successful growth of call centers in Central and Eastern Europe, EMEA will see as much as $16 billion in earned revenues in 2012, up from 11.2 billion in 2006. Egypt, South Africa and Tunisia are emerging areas for customer care services.
  • ICICI OneSource now Firstsource Solutions
    ICICI OneSource Ltd has announced that the company is renaming itself as Firstsource Solutions Ltd. The company also announced that it had filed the Draft Red Herring Prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as a precursor to its planned listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
  • Political unions taboo for BPOs
    Data security, safety for women employees, business development and curbing the high rate of attrition are some of the challenges the fast-growing Business Process Industry needs to face in the future, said the president of the Call Center Association of India (CCAI), Sam Chopra today.
  • Karnataka CM cautions corporates against neglecting local talent
    Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy today cautioned industrialists from the State that if local talent was continuously neglected in employment opportunities, it would snowball into a major social problem in the future.
  • Infy BPO sees exit at top deck
    Infosys Technologies’ decision to buy out Citigroup’s 23% stake in its BPO arm, the erstwhile Progeon, and consolidate the operations with itself, helped the country’s second largest IT exporter offer a seamless, end-to-end suite of services to its customers. But it left one group of stakeholders, the senior employees in Infosys BPO, clearly dissatisfied, leading to an exodus of several top functionaries.
  • OnTrac launches Xcelerate programme for BPO industry
    OnTrac, a leading provider of Operations oriented training and certification programmes for mid level managers in the BPO industry today announced the launch of Xcelerate programme for the senior frontline staff within the BPO industry.
  • Citu will not interfere in the IT and ITeS sectors
    Within days of floating the West Bengal IT Services Association, Citu has assured it will not interfere and hinder growth of the IT and ITeS sectors in the state. Citu state secretary Kali Ghosh said the growth of the IT sector would not be “nipped in the bud” through militant trade unionism.
  • Success stories: Integreon
    The booming knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) market has seen a string of companies mushrooming. The robust market has given growth momentum to companies like Integreon, a Mumbai-based legal process outsourcing (LPO) company, which entered the nascent KPO scene in India in ’00, backed by a US owner — Liam Brown.
  • BPOs' no-poaching pacts fall apart
    The BPO industry’s much-touted no-poaching pacts seem to have come a cropper. BPOs that have inked such deals say they exist only on paper. HR honchos in the sector are now declaring that these tie-ups are largely ineffective in retaining talent due to their cosmetic nature.
  • Two New CRM Apps Target Banking Industry
    The timing no doubt was happenstance, but the dual product rollouts illustrate the attraction this sector has for the CRM industry. In fact, banking is the top industry-specific vertical in the CRM space, based on figures from IDC. The new releases also illustrate why financial service providers in general are such avid consumers of CRM technology. In financial services, more than in other industries, maintaining and expanding upon existing client relationships is crucial to growth.
  • Pakistan may beat India in educational outsourcing
    Pakistan is likely to do better than India in capturing the global Educational Services Outsourcing market, which is estimated to grow by 90 per cent in the US alone in next ten years.
  • Avaya Acquires Traverse, Unifies Product Strategy
    Avaya's unified communications products use open industry standards and cross-platform protocols, enabling enterprises to integrate disparate networks, applications and devices. Its new solutions -- four product levels that provide varying degrees of functionality -- take into account companies' IT preparedness and how far they want to take their communications technology.
  • BPOs weigh future plans as deadline for tax breaks looms
    The clock is ticking for the Indian IT/ITES industry. The tax break given under Section 10A and 10B to IT and BPO companies technically comes to an end in ’09. Though the communications and IT minister Dayanidhi Maran has said that his ministry is in favour of extending the tax holiday, there has been no official communication from the government so far. The companies are, however, going ahead with acquiring land to expand their facilities.
  • CCAI condemns unions in BPO; gives alternative
    The Call Centre Association of India (CCAI) today condemned unions in BPO sector and said any unions in the industry would hamper industrial efficiency and prosperity.
  • Alarm bells ring for BPOs again
    They are the face of 21st century India. Thousands of youngsters sitting before flickering monitors, all wired with headphones, talking to clients across the world at that witching hour when the city is asleep.
  • EXL posts 272% increase in net income at $4.1 mn
    Nasdaq-listed BPO company EXl Service on Thursday posted a whopping 272 per cent increase in its net income at $4.1 million for the third quarter ended September 2006 against $1.1 million in the same quarter in 2005.
  • WNS names Arjun Singh new CEO for BFSI unit
    Domestic business process outsourcing major WNS on Thursday announced the appointment of Arjun Singh as Chief Executive Officer of its Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) business unit.
  • Decision on taxability of BPO units soon
    The issue of taxation of business process outsourcing (BPO) units in the country may be resolved soon. The appeals by both the income tax (I-T) department and Morgan Stanley have been listed for hearing in the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday.
  • Merril Corp launches ITeS facility in Chennai
    Merril Corporation, a US based leading provider of solutions for business communications and information management needs, on Wednesday launched its dedicated India operations for IT enabled services in Chennai through Merril Technology services India.
  • Genpact emerges as the largest employer
    BPO giant Genpact has emerged as the largest employer in the Indian IT and ITeS space with 19,700 employees, closely followed by US-based Accenture with a headcount of 19,000, according to a latest study.
  • Helpdesk calls on the rise: Cisco Study
    Cisco today released a final set of results from a global survey of information technology (IT) decision makers, revealing a sobering admission among many of them that security-related helpdesk calls are rising and that, to protect increasingly mobile workers, a majority will increase security spending next year – and two of every five will boost spending by more than 10 percent in 2007.
  • BPOs offer education bait to staff
    Fat pay packets alone can’t stem attrition in the BPO industry. The industry offers better career prospects and higher education to have a stable workforce.
  • BPO cos not worried over Democrat win
    Two years ago, US Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry created a scare in the Indian IT industry with his anti-outsourcing rhetoric.
  • Now, it's speech outsourcing
    A year ago, UK government is said to have outsourced pre- and post-election work to a BPO firm in Bangalore. Despite the rhetoric raised across the US and UK against outsourcing, its utility may have been felt even in the political corridors.
  • MP gives go ahead to Genpact delivery centre
    Will Bhopal metamorphose into another Gurgaon or Bangalore? The MP government has given the go ahead for the first delivery centre to be set up by Genpact in Bhopal. Genpact, a BPO in which GE owns around 40%, has got an in-principle clearance for three SEZs and the company has chosen Bhubhneshwar and Jaipur as the other locations.
  • 24/7 Customer mulls $250-m Nasdaq listing
    Bangalore-based BPO 24/7 Customer is learnt to be in talks with Nasdaq for a possible $250-million initial public offer (IPO). While the company said it is not looking at a listing for the next 18 months, sources in the financial services sector said the company could list on Nasdaq as early as June 2007.
  • Genpact gets down to trimming staff
    The lack of infrastructure seems to be emerging as a sore point for Indian BPO companies. The competitiveness of Indian companies is eroding with the rising cost of overheads by building support infrastructure. The largest company in the BPO space, Genpact has decided to take a stab at reducing the cost of its support infrastructure.
  • Nights @ call centre to get serious
    Nights at the call centre will now get longer as the "party place" is all set to get serious. The BPO industry is seriously considering a serious makeover: From a "fun place" to one which means "only business". All this in a bid to be taken more seriously.
  • IT is not essential service: Citu
    A day after a worried West Bengal IT industry held that there should not be any coercive trade union activity in the sector, the CPI(M)'s trade union Citu indicated strike can take place in IT industry as it is not an essential service.
  • BPO recruiters get real about staff stability
    When reality bites, grin and bear it. HR professionals in the BPO sector are getting realistic about ideas of employee stability, and are now open to hiring those who show a promise of staying on for even 12 months — a contrast from two years ago when this would have been considered too unstable.
  • Outsourcing is good for US economy: Ballmer
    Favouring large-scale outsourcing of software services and R&D works to countries such as India, Steve Ballmer, CEO of the world's largest software company Microsoft, has said the US stands to benefit out of this.
  • I-OneSource plans to pursue acquisitions
    ICICI OneSource, while betting on a global delivery model, is itching to get back into the acquisition mode for additional mindshare in the crowded BPO space.
  • Flag Telecom to foray into BPO services
    Flag Telecom, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group-owned mobile service provider Reliance Communications, is venturing into outsourcing and IP-based managed services. The company will focus on high-end global managed services market targeting enterprises and fast-growing telecom service providers.
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  • NYC stops online tutoring from India
    New York City investigators recommended legal action against Plano, Texas-based Socratic Learning Inc, a company that provides online tuition, for failing to conduct proper background checks of its tutors.
  • Global offshoring revenues dip, but local cos zip ahead
    Outsourcing research firm TPI says that the total global outsourcing revenues have declined for the third quarter of ’06. Global majors seem to be going for shorter duration of outsourcing contracts which is reducing the total value of the contract per se. Moreover, the total number of contracts in the IT outsourcing area is also shrinking while it is growing in the BPO area.
  • Sutherland expands Global BPO operations
    Sutherland Global Services has announced the launch of a new Canadian delivery center in Windsor, Ontario. The facility, slated to become operational this month, will initially house the technical support operations for a Fortune 100 global technology leader. Sutherland’s investment in Windsor marks the first major ITeS Corporation’s move to the city. The new location is slated to grow to 1,000 employees within 18 months.
  • Disuk Co-Founder Paul Howard on Protecting Data From Outsourcers
    It is quite clear that most people in the UK understand that our banks' call centers are outsourced. But we would like to see regulations similar to those in California brought into the UK, requiring banks whose data has been exposed to notify all affected customers immediately (even if their accounts haven't been used fraudulently).
  • Aussie banks support 'offshoring' to India
    Indian BPOs are in for more Australian financial services work as the two of the largest Australian banks have indicated sending more projects to low-cost countries like India.
  • Delhi among top hubs for outsourcing
    Indian cities led by Delhi’s national capital region (NCR) have grabbed the top seven slots in a global ranking of the competitiveness of cities as outsourcing destinations. Close on the heels of Delhi are Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai, according to a study released by US-based consulting firm neoIT.
  • Indian cities best for outsourcing: Survey
    New Delhi is the most attractive city in the world for companies looking to set up offshore back office operations thanks to its cheapness and a large pool of skilled labour, a new survey by a US-based consultancy says.
  • Nasscom test for BPO job seekers to start in Rajasthan
    Nasscom on Tuesday announced national rollout of Nasscom Assessment of Competence (NAC), a capability assessment programme for potential employees of the BPO industry, with Rajasthan slated to become the first state to administer the test.
  • BPO Goes to Hollywood
    Hollywood film stars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have been shooting in the western India city of Pune for A Mighty Heart, the story of the Al Qaeda kidnapping of Wall Street Journal journalist Danny Pearl. A flotilla of Indian service providers, from film technicians to security guards, has been supporting them.

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