Wednesday, Oct 06, 2004
Wednesday, Oct 06, 2004 |
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Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Tamil Nadu
By Karthik Subramanian
CHENNAI, OCT. 5. Prakash Motwani, a first year B.A. Economics student of D. G. Vaishnav College here, attends classes from 8.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. After college, he works part-time in a domestic call centre. He knows that by the time he finishes graduation a five-digit salary will be well within his grasp. Prakash is among the hundreds of Chennai college students , who are finding out that all it takes to cash in on the call centre boom is the ability to speak `accent-free' English and to adapt themselves to working difficult hours. He sees no hassle working to day hours in western countries in and is looking at a full-fledged career as a call centre executive, not just a stopgap arrangement. He hopes he will join an international call centre after three years, where Rs. 25,000 a month salary is the norm. According to a recent study by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) and the international consultant KPMG, Chennai has more than 30,000 persons employed directly in the IT-enabled services — BPO (business process outsourcing) sector. The 35 BPO units in the city contribute to more than 17 per cent of the ITES-BPO workforce in the country. Phenomenal growth At a recent conference here, representatives of the city's leading BPOs, such as Office Tiger, Sutherland Global Services, Allsec Technologies Limited and Scope International Private Limited spoke about expanding their services considerably within the next year. Some companies have seen a phenomenal growth in recent years. Scope International , which takes care of back office transactions, has grown from 200 employees in 2001 to 3,500 today. Sutherland, which handles voice-based operations, has seen its employee strength double every year. It now employs 6,000 persons. The BPO sector in Chennai is expected to get further fillip with the NASSCOM setting up its regional office here on Monday. A NASSCOM statement quotes the IT service-provider, Cognizant president and CEO N. Lakshmi Narayanan: "The timing could not be better than this, as Chennai is making strides in the mainstream Indian IT and ITES. The NASSCOM's presence will rejuvenate the small and medium enterprises and create visibility for a more aggressive growth." The demand for BPO agents is providing an opportunity to some small and medium software units to re-position themselves as trainers and recruitment agencies. One such recruitment agency, Shubman Software at Anna Nagar, offers a seemingly ridiculous offer : "Pay us Rs. 500 and we will find you a job in a call centre." But its partners, Ashok Subramanian and Maneesh Williams, say the criterion for getting a job is simple: a good voice and accent. Shubman Software assisted Prakash in finding a placement to work part-time.
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