Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Dec 04, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Dec 04, 2002 |
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Info-Tech
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Outsourcing Cognizant Tech to begin BPO services soon — Two call centres planned in Pune, Bangalore Our Bureau
KOLKATA, Dec. 3 COGNIZANT Technology Solutions India Pvt Ltd is slated to commence its BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) operations from the first quarter of calendar year 2003. Two call centres of the company will be operational in Pune and Bangalore, according to Mr R. Bhatnagar, Head of Cogizant Technology Solutions' BPO business. Speaking to newspersons after addressing Infocom 2002 here on Tuesday, Mr Bhatnagar said the call centre at Pune would have 250-275 seats while the one in Bangalore would have 150-175 seats. Both the call centres would have voice and data BPO services in the company's areas of core competencies i.e. banking, financial services, insurance and healthcare. The company owns the Pune facility while the property in Bangalore has been obtained on lease. ``The idea is to leverage on our capabilities in IT services for our BPO operations,'' he said, adding that the company would initially target existing customers through its own relationship team. BPO specialists in this regard would provide the back-up support. ``Our domain expertise is going to be a big differentiator in our BPO operations. We hope to have all seats operational on two-shift basis within the first 12 months from the date we commence our BPO operations,'' Mr Bhatnagar said. The size of the global BPO market is said to be in excess of $350 billion per annum. US companies save 30-70 per cent on costs by outsourcing non-core activities. Cognizant Technology Solutions, which has invested $20 million (about Rs 100 crore) on infrastructure in 2002, hopes to generate a turnover of over Rs 1,000 crore on operations during the year ending December 31,2002. Already, the company has emerged as the sixth-largest software company in India. Earlier, addressing the technical session at Infocom 2002, being held jointly by Nasscom and Businessworld, Mr Bhatnagar said outsourcing enables companies to free available resources so that they can focus on their core competencies. ``Outsourcing is cost-effective, it enhances stakeholders' value even as it helps companies to tap a larger pool of manpower''. According to him, call centres were gradually transforming themselves into ``customer information centres'' where each caller would be treated as a separate individual. ``From efficient management of phone contact, the focus has shifted to maximising customer relationship and, towards this end, clients are increasingly willing to partner with vendors,'' he said.
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