vCustomer set to double turnover

vCustomer Services India, a leading third party BPO company operating out of India, is on track to achieve the target it set for itself last year - doubling the turnover in two successive years.

In 2003-04 it has recorded a turnover of nearly $33 million, twice the $16 million achieved in 2002-03.

To achieve its target for the current year, the company plans to double its headcount to 6,000 by March 2005.

"Irrespective of whether the turnover actually doubles or not, vCustomer will certainly be well ahead of the industry average in topline growth," Sujit Baksi, president, vCustomer asserted.

Baksi discounted the concerns of over price cutting and asserted that "prices can be maintained if quality is maintained." Quality delivery not only ensures price stability but also helps in getting new business, he maintained.

vCustomer, which mainly provides technical help desk support, is going up the value chain by undertaking complete problem resolution.

Baksi said that the BPO industry in India could reach the target of employing a million people by 2008 (it closed 2003-04 with a strength of 245,000) "provided quality is maintained, and quality is a concern."

Higher value work is coming to India but this is happening more to captive units as, being in house extensions, they do not raise security concerns.

To propel growth, vCustomer is working on three fronts - quality, security and upgrading of skills. To ensure quality, it has one quality supervisor for very 16 agents, compared with the industry norm of one for 35 agents.

It is also bringing in around 10 teachers from the US who will work along with Indian agents so as to impart soft skills.

The company has launched a new initiative in physical and data security, anticipating that this will become a key issue in the current year.

vCustomer is now a paper-less office. Agents are not allowed to carry pen and paper into their workplace and are not allowed to loiter to another area where work of a different client is being handled.

The company stores all data in the US and is accessed from India for processing.

The holding company of vCustomer Services India, promoted by the Seattle-based Sanjay Kumar, formerly of Microsoft, is incorporated in the US.

To take care of emerging needs for better middle management skills, vCustomer has recently recruited nearly 30 MBAs from some of the leading business schools in the country like IIM-Calcutta, XLRI, Jamshedpur, ISB, Hyderabad and FMS, Delhi.