Prudential invests $8 mn in India operations

The UK-based Prudential Plc has invested close to $8 million in its business outsourcing unit, Prudential Process Management Services (PPMS), in India in the last two years.

Philip Broadley, group finance director of Prudential Plc, said, "We have committed a total investment of $10 million for the new offshore service centre in India."

Set up in 1848, Prudential Plc is a leading international financial services company with around 16 million customers, policyholders and unit holders, and around 20,000 employees world-wide.

Its 1,00,000 sq feet centre situated in Mumbai has 850 employees and handles both policy-holders calls and back office administration of policies.

Broadley said, "We will reach full capacity by 2005 as we are currently completing our planned migration and capacity on service of the centre."

He said, "We get around 125,000 calls a month on a whole range of product enquires and almost half of these calls are serviced from India."

Beside India, Prudential Plc operates three service centres in Europe.

Explaining on selecting India as its outsourcing destination, Philip Broadley said, "The principal driver behind the decision was cost but we also wanted to increase our flexibility. The other main attraction to India was that we already had a business there. We leveraged off our experience in Asia. It really helped."

India is a logical extension of the ongoing customer service transformation strategy, outlined by Prudential Plc, he said.

Broadley said, "Currently we are working to re-engineer our business and strengthen the Prudential Plc brand in the UK through a customer service focus that is driven by quality, productivity and cost efficiency."

On being asked on cost savings from the Indian centre, he added, "We are on track to achieve 16 million pound savings from 2006 as a result of creating of this new service centre. These savings are in addition to our 200 million pound cost saving target announced in November 2001."