Kale Consultants to set up BPO facility in Pune

As part of its expansion drive, travel and tour software solutions company, Kale Consultants, is planning to set up a business process outsourcing (BPO) unit in Pune for handling mid-office applications of airlines and tour operators.

"The proposed facility will be similar to our Mumbai facility and will have 150-seat capacity. The facility will handle passenger and cargo revenue accounting, revenue recovery and protection, proration, fare loading and refund processing," CEO and Managing Director Vipul Jain said.

He said the company already has premises in Pune to start the BPO unit. "We are also exploring the option of operating in the leased facility. The Pune facility will ease the operational burden on the Mumbai unit," Jain said.

He further said he is in talks with two domestic airlines for implementing Kale's cargo and passenger revenue accounting.

Meanwhile, UK's second-largest airline British Midland Airways (bmi) has signed a contract with Kale Consultants for revenue accounting processing services.

Kale will provide revenue accounting processing services to bmi from Kale MPS (managed processing services) centre in Mumbai. The value of the contract over a five-year period is estimated to be approximately £ 8 million.

Kale will provide a complete range of revenue accounting services including the processing of sales and uplifts, claims to credit card companies and to other airlines for interline coupons, declaration of revenue with comprehensive account postings for the general ledger, management of deals and a decision support business intelligence system.

Nigel Turner, chief executive officer, bmi, said, "Our business objective was to significantly reduce our operational costs and improve the revenue accounting process. To achieve this, we needed to use an industry standard solution with the requisite processes to ensure business continuity and low risk."

Jain added that bmi would soon be able to take the full advantage of the unique benefits that Kale's outsourcing solution offers through fast and accurate management information that would provide inputs for the airline major's strategy.