Business   

Targeting domestic BPO

By N. N. Sachitanand

BANGALORE OCT. 25. While most companies in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry have their sights fixed on foreign clientele, the three-year-old, Bangalore-based contact centre, Customer First Services, is aiming to thrive on domestic business. "Not many people have an idea about the immense business potential in domestic BPO," says Sandip Sen, CEO of Customer First. "Take just one vertical business segment, mobile phone services. There are already 15 million subscribers and this number is expected to cross 30 million by 2004-05. Just on the basis of two complaints per month per subscriber, the cellular vertical alone can generate a business of Rs. 250-300 crores per year for call centres. And there are many other business verticals such as transport services, financial institutions, consumer durables sector, tourism and hospitality, and retailing which will need contact centre services on an equal scale".

Mr. Sen acknowledges that the rate fetched per call handled for foreign clients is almost three times what a domestic client is prepared to pay. On the other hand, the costs involved in handling a domestic call are also proportionally less. This is because the connectivity charges are borne by the domestic client and the cost to the company for an agent handling domestic calls is lower since the agent does not need to be as highly trained as an agent handling foreign clients.

According to Mr. Sen, the gross margin in handling foreign calls is around 35-40 per cent while that for domestic calls is around 25-30 per cent. Based on this premise, Customer First, which has been promoted by a group of telecom professionals, has decided to become a dominant player on the domestic front, while keeping a toehold on foreign business. And the company's strategy has succeeded.

From a mere Rs. 55 lakh turnover in the first year, the company's gross income has burgeoned to Rs. 18 crores in the third year of operation. "We are looking at becoming a Rs. 100 crore company in the next three years," says Mr. Sen. "We will have a strength of 1000 agents by the end of this year and expect to be 3500 strong by the end of 2006. By then, we expect more than 55 per cent of our revenue to come from the domestic sector". Customer First has over 30 domestic and international clients, with operations in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkota, Chennai, Pune, Kochi and Coimbatore. Its international clients are spread among the insurance, health care and publishing verticals, while the domestic customers are in the financial services, mobile telecom, consumer durables, airlines, FMCG, IT and government sectors. Besides voice based support, Customer First also provides web based customer care (e-mail management and chat support) as well as database management services. The company has already invested around $800,000 in its operations and is looking to raise another $3 million for expansion, either through an IPO or venture capital.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• Forex reserves cross $91 b
• Tax collections up
• Targeting domestic BPO
• Samvat 2060 begins on positive note
• IBS buys Avient from Honeywell
• HDFC Bank, Navy sign pact

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu