BPO

Genpact, the country’s largest BPO firm, has been named the top procurement outsourcing provider by Brown-Wilson Group’s 50 Best Managed Outsourcing Vendors in 2007.

The annual study, conducted by Brown-Wilson Group and The Black Book of Outsourcing, recognises excellence in the areas of supply chain management, purchasing & transaction management, category management and logistics spend & contract management.

The study surveyed over 3,500 senior procurement, supply chain management and chief financial and operating executives. Genpact scored the highest in 13 of the 18 unique ranking criteria, leading the supply chain, logistics and category management categories.

Neeraj Bhargava, CEO of Mumbai-based business process outsourcing (BPO firm) WNS Global Services, and his team have voluntarily decided to forfeit their bonuses if they are not successful in getting the attrition rates below 30 per cent.

This is probably the first such move of its kind in the industry in which attrition has become a critical issue.

WNS has over 15,000 employees, and its current attrition rate stands at 43 per cent.

The $9 billion BPO sector employs around 600,000 people. However, unlike the IT sector, where average attrition rates hover between 11 and 20 per cent, BPO attrition rates generally range between 50 and 60 per cent in the voice segment, and around 35 per cent in the non-voice segment.

A majority of Indian BPO firms have a 20:80 voice to non-voice ratio.

“Our attrition rate is just not acceptable. We want to get it below 30 per cent. Our bonuses are on the line if we don’t,” asserted Bhargava.

“How you hire is very important on who stays and leaves,” he said, adding that WNS is now focusing on increasing the percentage of people they recruit from referral programmes.

“The reason is simple. There’s a bond with employees that already exists from an early stage,” explains Bhargava.

WNS is also running a programme called “Back to basics”. “As we grew very rapidly in different cities in different business units, there was a lack of standardisation in our own operating procedures. Over the last six months we have taken note of the best practices the world over and are now implementing them as a standard across the company,” he adds.

WNS will also make “significant investments” in leadership development and education programmes.

“We also experimented by allowing some employees to take up an MBA programme on the side. Many of them are still with the company,” Bhargava added.

He said the company also runs an elaborate education programme aimed at enhancing skill sets that will allow employees to add value to their BPO profession.

“All these steps are based on feedback from employees,” Bhargava said.

The over $350 million (around Rs 1,400 crore) WNS was one of the first BPO firms to be hit by the subprime issue when it lost one of its clients — First Magnus — and also revenues close to 5 per cent.

It subsequently revised its guidance (about $16 million lower) but then revised it upwards within a month.

There were around 500 people working on the Magnus deal. However, “not a single employee was asked to leave. The team responded with a lot of alacrity to the situation,” Bhargava said.

“I believe we are a serious company that executes well. If you look at the quarter that ended in June 2007, we added 1,700 people, which meant that the demand is very robust,” he added.

IT solutions provider Cerebra Integrated Technologies on Wednesday announced plans to acquire firms in business process outsourcing (BPO).

Considering the potential growth, we are on the look-out for acquisitions in the BPO sector, the company said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The Bangalore-based IT firm is in the process of shortlisting such firms involved in the architectural, knowledge process outsourcing business, it said.

The company intends to buy small to mid-sized firms in India and the US, besides its plans to invest in building 200-seat strong BPO business, it said.

“We see huge potential in this segment as firms globally outsource activities such as design, drawings, 3D modelling and so on to save on costs,” company Managing Director Ranganathan V said.

“This is a manpower intensive segment and the cost savings from outsourcing would be significant,” he added.

The Pune police have acknowledged the role played by the murdered Wipro BPO employee’s Bangalore-based friend, Jeevan, in helping speed up investigation.

It was Jeevan who felt compelled to call up Jyoti’s relatives in Delhi after his telephonic conversation with her went dead abruptly and he overheard bits of tense questions Jyoti was asking the driver on the night of her disappearance.

Jeevan has helped us nab the murderers of Jyotikumari Chaudhary (22), who raped and killed on the night of November 1, Chatushrungi police station’s senior police inspector, Sheshrao Suryavanshi, said.

Jyoti was speaking to Jeevan on her mobile phone when she was allegedly driven to the Gahunje hamlet near Talegaon Dabhade on the Mumbai-Pune expressway.

“On November 1, Jyoti was speaking to Jeevan when she got into the car from her Pashan home. During the conversation, Jeevan had sensed something was wrong,'’ he said.

According to the police, Jeevan had heard Jyoti asking the accused driver Purushottam Borate (26) as to where he was taking her after she saw a different route. The driver then told her they have to take another employee from Nigdi.

“Jeevan also sensed something was amiss from Jyoti’s questions to the driver and her tensed voice. The phone was disconnected suddenly, prompting Jeevan to call Jyoti’s elder sister in Delhi,'’ Suryanshi said.

Jeevan kept trying her elder sister’s number all the night, but could not get through as the mobile was switched off. Later, on the morning of November 2, he informed her. She immediately called her sister in Pune with whom Jyoti was staying.

In what could probably be the first of its kind venture, two Indian firms on Wednesday signed an initial pact with a Chinese industry body to train Chinese students in skills required in the booming outsourcing sector.

China-based Xi’an Service Outsourcing Development Association signed an MoU with Starting Point Competence Training and Snam Abrasive to enhance the level of certification and training required for the BPO industry.

The MoU, signed at the Xi’an-Bangalore Service Outsourcing conference, stresses on joint efforts to encourage, stimulate and formulate competency developmental activities that would promote the BPO industry in Xi’an. The city in western China is referred to as the capital of that country’s BPO industry.

Wang Qi Wen, departmental chief of organisational department of Xi’an Municipal Committee, said though the city had a rich amount of talent, it lagged behind in training. He also sought cooperation with Indian companies to enhance training facilities in Xi’an.

India has gained worldwide recognition in the past few years as a hub of outsourcing activity, with hundreds of English-speaking students graduating from colleges and universities every year. Neighbouring China, on the other hand, is more known for its manufacturing prowess and has only recently sped up efforts to tap the services sector. “By 2010, we will provide suitable jobs for 100,000 college students and attract 1,000 companies from home and abroad to set up outsourcing firms in Xi’an,” said Wang Yi, president of Xi’an trade and economic cooperation bureau.

Various measures would be taken to provide training and industrial support, promote investment and protect intellectual property rights among others, he said. Under the agreement, efforts would be made to provide assistance to BPO companies in Xi’an to achieve international standards in terms of customer satisfaction.

Jolted by the murder of a call centre employee in Pune, the BPO industry has finalised a plan to set up round-the-clock hotline wireless network and a security patrol unit in the national capital region for ensuring safety of staff, particularly the women.

These and other initiatives like a check on rash cab driving and over speeding, pre-employment screening of transport drivers and contractors will be implemented by the end of this month with the help of Delhi and Gurgaon Police.

The Business Process Industry Association of India (BPIAI), an affiliate of CII, held a meeting at Gurgaon last week after the rape and murder of a call centre staff in Pune.

Representatives of leading BPOs including Genpact, WNS, Dell, Quatrro and Teletech attended the meeting and “agreed upon the long-term measures to counter the problem”, a CII statement said here.

There would be mandatory pre-employment screening of all cab drivers by police and the transporter will be indemnified for the behaviour of his drivers. Information on the black- listed cab drivers will be shared among the BPOs in Gurgaon. The steps will later be replicated in other BPO centres like Bangalore, Pune, Chandigarh, Chennai, Mumbai and Jaipur.

The procedure of ferrying female employee - who are not to be picked up first and dropped last - will be strictly adhered to. In case the procedure is not being followed, the female employee should get clearance from the transport desk of her employer.

A smaller group of BPO representatives will meet the Delhi and Gurgaon police to work out a “win-win” solution on speed limit for cab drivers.

The industry will also coordinate yoga and meditation classes for de-stressing the cab drivers.