24/7 Customer to up headcount by 2,000 in Chennai, Hyderabad

Plans to make acquisition worth $25 million in low cost locations abroad

Outsourced contact centre and business processes outsourcing service provider, 24/7 Customer expects to ramp up its headcount by 2,000 in Chennai and Hyderabad by December 2005. The company has plans to make an acquisition worth $25 million in low cost locations like Eastern Europe, South America and Philippines.

Inaugurating the 24/7 Customer Chennai facility, Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said, "Bangalore was getting overheated and facing infrastructure crises while the gap of infrastructure supply was smaller in Chennai."

Vivek Harinarain, secretary, information technology, government of Tamil Nadu, said that Chennai has improved in two counts, namely, the perceptions of the city and the availability of grade A space. At present, about 5 million sq ft of grade A space is under various stages of construction.

He added that the Chennai facility of 24/7 Customer would grow to be the largest centre for the company in the next three years. With this, the BPO service provider has a presence in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai with six centres. At present, the company has a headcount of 4,000 in the Bangalore and Hyderabad facilities.

Addressing mediapersons, P V Kannan, founder and chief executive officer of 24/7 Customer, said that the Chennai facility has capacity of 250 seats and this facility will be expanded to 500 seats over the next six months.

When asked about the investment made in the Chennai facility, Kannan declined to comment.

The launch of this facility is in line with our strategy to implement a multi location delivery model capable of supporting multiple processes. We have a structured growth plan for Chennai over the six to 12 months time frame and we intend to deliver both voice and non-voice processes from our set up here, he added.

24/7 Customer expects to close the current financial year with a turnover of $45 million compared to $21 million in 2003-04.