iBridge plans BPO arm for finance, telecom clients

iBridge Solutions will soon commence business process outsourcing (BPO) operations for banking and telecom companies.

The operations of the company will be headed by Pradeep Phadke, a veteran in the BPO industry whose last assignment was with GTL Ltd in Pune. He headed a team of 550-people team there.

Phadke told Business Standard that iBridge Solutions has been registered as an exports orientied unit (EOU), which will primarily focus on the US, UK and Australia geographies for revenues in its first year of operations. The company will thereafter look at servicing the domestic market.

"We are targeting a revenue of Rs 78 crore in our first year of operations," said Phadke. He said the company would offer customer care and telemarketing services in banking and telecom domains and has a project in the pipeline for providing web-based research.

"Over time, we expect to provide website analysis as well, thus climbing up the value chain to become a KPO."

The company has started training its first batch of 20 employees and the second batch of 25 is slated to begin training early next month. It has invested Rs 20 crore to set up the operations.

Revealing that iBridge Solutions plans to upscale to 2,000 people within the next 6-7 months, Phadke said, "We have leased an 850-seater campus and plan to work in two shifts and reach full capacity utilisation, that is recruit 2,000 people within 6-7 months of beginning operations.

Of this 2,000, we are targeting at least 10 per cent of our employees to be from the rural areas," he added.

Phadke said, "Our initial clients have prospects of growing upto 100-150 people processes. But our real work will begin in June as the company will then get 400-500 seat projects from US and UK based clients."