TransWorks joins US firm for analytics

TransWorks, a BPO company which is part of the Aditya Birla Group, has forayed into the $5 billion data analytics and business intelligence market by entering into a partnership with US-based Innovative Marketing Consultants International (IMC).

IMC offers data analytics, business intelligence, customer retention and value creation services as an offshore-onshore model. IMC and TransWorks will work on a revenue-sharing basis and will provide each other's service offerings to their respective clients. The companies are also likely to pitch for new clients with a combined service offering.

This partnership will mean that a high level of consulting practice will now be offered by TransWorks in its services model.

While IMC will offer the necessary tools and data for improving customer efficiency, TransWorks will implement the solutions. TransWorks has not ruled out the possibility of forming a separate entity if this relationship fructifies.

IMC is currently about 70-strong and employs people who are from management and statistics streams.

As a result of this partnership, TransWorks will hire people with similar profiles to provide more value to its clients by providing services that analyse customer purchase sequences.

"We feel it is a better strategy to enter the business intelligence market through an alliance. Having partnered IMC, we will now integrate what they are doing into our service offerings. This will enhance our competitive edge in the marketplace by offering end-to-end CRM and business intelligence solution," Prakash Gurbaxani, CEO, TransWorks, said.

Today, the services component of the business intelligence market is nearly $1.2 billion, while the rest is made up by the technology component.

The services that will be offered jointly in the customer retention and support programmes include right channelling and routing calls which will in turn optimise support costs for clients.

According to Gurbaxani, companies pursuing similar opportunities in the business analytics market in US are charging high at "a few hundred dollars per hour. By hiring similar PhD holders and management people, this work can be executed in India for about $20-25 per hour. Existing customers who wish to use the service to improve their profitability can be charged nearly $15 per hour."

Gurbaxani added that in the long-term, pure play voice was a riskier proposition when compared to non-voice service which allows a BPO company to better utilise its infrastructure.