Firstsource signs Rs 145 cr deal with Idea Cellular

Firstsource Solutions, an India business process outsourcing (BPO) services provider, and Idea Cellular — India's third-largest private telecom services provider — today signed a five-year, Rs 145 crore outsourcing agreement.

Firstsource will provide a suite of customer management interaction services including customer service, billing, new product information and plan details related interaction services to Idea from its centre in Coimbatore. It will be provide these services for Idea’s Kerala and Tamil Nadu customers in English, Malayalam and Tamil.

“Firstsource brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in running large customer support operations for global telecom service providers and has the ability to help us manage our rapid growth in the service areas of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. We believe our customers will benefit from their service capabilities” said Navanit Narayan, Chief Service Delivery Officer, Idea Cellular.

Chandra Iyer, EVP & Head Asia Business Unit, Firstsource said, “The Indian telecom market is an extremely large, rapidly growing one and has unique challenges. We look forward to leveraging our global best practices and our process expertise to help Idea get better operational flexibility, productivity and increased customer satisfaction.”  

Currently, around 12 per cent (around Rs 210 crore) of Firstsource's revenues (around Rs 1,750 crore as on March 31, 2009) come from India business. It derives almost 34 per cent of its revenues from the telecom vertical. Its clients in the telecommunications and media industry include Airtel and Vodafone.