Also in talks with IBM for handling a part of its call centre requirements. |
Telecom major Bharti Tele-Ventures is in talks with third-party business process outsourcing (BPO) company Wipro Spectramind for outsourcing its call centre operations. |
|
The company is also in talks with IBM, which recently acquired BPO company Daksh, for handling a part of its call centre requirements. |
|
Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and managing director, Bharti group, said negotiations with BPO companies, including Wipro Spectramind, were on but the size of the deal could not be revealed. |
|
The company is in talks with a number of BPO companies for each of the four geographical regions where Bharti is present through 16 cellular and five basic telephony licences. |
|
Bharti has already outsourced a significant part of its call centre requirements for its pre-paid card business to small agencies. Teletech India, a joint venture between Bharti and US-based Teletech also handles call centre traffic for pre-paid users. |
|
Company sources said while pre-paid outsourcing contracts might be shifted to larger BPO companies, Teletech would continue to handle call centre operations for Bharti's circles in north India. |
|
The call centre requirements for Bharti's post-paid subscribers are handled in-house, with special units for high-end customers. Bharti has 4-5 customer call centres across the country. |
|
If Bharti succeeds in concluding a deal with BPO service providers, the company will be the first telecom operator in the country that will focus only on the marketing and branding of telecom services. |
|
Bharti has outsourced its countrywide network and equipment management to Ericsson and IBM is managing the company's information technology requirements. |
|
Analysts said the Bharti model would become the trend with more telecom operators outsourcing business processes to achieve cost savings of up to 30 per cent. |
|
"With increasing competition and declining tariffs, operators are looking at best practices to claim a larger share of the market without increasing operational expenses. In this scenario, outsourcing offers the perfect solution," said an analyst. |
|
Leaner Bharti - Call centre outsourcing will leave Bharti with only marketing and branding activities
- Cellular network management outsourced to Ericsson for $400 mn for three years
- IT services and hardware outsourced to IBM for $750 million for ten years
|
|
|
|