HCL signs 3-year deal with UK-based utility

HCL BPO, the business process outsourcing arm of HCL Technologies has signed a three-year deal with a UK-based utility to which it will provide end to end business acquisition and support services for its boiler, insulation services and energy saver products business. Experts peg the deal to be around $30 million (Rs 135 crore). 

The BPO launched its utilities vertical last year and its first utility client, a leading water company in the UK, has trebled in size over the last one year. 

Moreover, in the utilities space, 3-4 deals are in the pipeline and HCL BPO plans to close some of them in the next couple of quarters. 

Utilities is part of the retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) and together, they contribute 20 per cent to HCL BPO’s revenues. The headcount in the vertical is around 2,500 people and the BPO plans to increase it significantly over the next one year. 

“We expect this to increase significantly over the next one year. Also, there are six significant clients in the vertical. We hope to add more over the next quarter or two,” said Neeraj Tandon, retail & utility and sales for Europe & NI, HCL BPO. 

However, the company said there is subdued demand for retail vertical focused services though horizontal services like finance and accounting, human resource outsourcing, supply chain management and customer relationship management (CRM) continue to have demand. 

CRM accounts for more than 70 per cent of HCL BPO’s total India business. “However, we are working hard to change the services mix so that we have a 50-50 mix of front office and back-office processes,” added Tandon. 

In January this year, HCL BPO and CRM solutions company Talisma announced a joint go-to-market strategy to launch a new service offering in the hosted CRM service. 

“We have already completed a successful proof or concept with Talisma, in the area of multi channel customer support, for one of our automotive retail clients. We are now taking hosted call centre services with Talisma to the market place. We are currently engaged in a few important deals with this proposition. Deal sizes vary,” he added. Almost 15 resources are working on this alliance globally. 

Analysts added that the deal sizes in such go-to-market strategies can be around $10 million (Rs 45 crore).