Akiko Callnet sets up six facilities in Tamil Nadu

Akiko Callnet, a call centre training provider, has set up six facilities in Tamil Nadu "� four in Chennai and one each in Coimbatore and Udhagamandalam, taking the total number of call centres under its operation to 80.

"By the end of December, we plan to open a total of 20 such centres in Tamil Nadu and four more in Chennai alone. Chennai is emerging as a BPO hub as it has good infrastructure facilities and quality manpower," said Vikas Sharma, chief operating officer of Akiko Callnet.

The company, which is part of the Sherman Group, also plans to open more centres in other parts of Tamil Nadu like Madurai and Tiruchirapalli early next year.

Out of the 80 centres that it operates, Akiko owns 18 centres and has franchised the rest of them to third parties. In the last three years of its operation, the company has trained 20,000 students and claims to have placed 18,000 of them.

The cost for the four to five-week training programme for BPO skills enhancement is Rs 6,000. Akiko awards an international certificate through Train Now, a US-based call centre training service provider, with whom it has a tie up. This certificate is at present recognised by Convergys, Daksh e-services, V-customer and a few other BPO companies in India.

The company has already placed students in Sutherland Global Services, Wipro Spectramind, Allsec Technologies and eServe.