Progeon bets on non-voice work

Progeon, the business process outsourcing (BPO) subsidiary of Infosys Technologies, reported June quarter revenues of Rs 78 crore ($18 million) this year. This compares with Rs 63.5 crore ($14.6 million) for the last quarter of the year-ended March 2005.

Net profits were at Rs 18.4 crore ($4.23 million) for the first quarter this fiscal. Operating margins for the June quarter were at 28 per cent while net margins were at 24.6 per cent.

Akshaya Bhargava, managing director of Progeon, said, the company was seeing strong growth in line with its aim of getting non-voice business. However, it hasn't been able to turn away from all voice-based work yet, as a recent deal with a large US-based computer distributor showed.

The company has 19 customers, including Ingram Micro, a Santa Ana, California-based PC distributor. "We are handling their order management," Bhargava said. Progeon, which came into its own in the last two quarters, is also hiring staff aggressively. It added 773 people in the June quarter, taking its staff strength to 4,739. On a last-twelve-months basis, the BPO business had attrition rates of 35 per cent, he said.

The order management solution that Progeon was implementing was also the result of a deal struck with Infosys Consulting, a US subsidiary, playing a role in bagging it. Nandan M Nilekani, Infosys' managing director, said at the IT services firm's earnings press meet two days ago that BPO services will be closely integrated with the company's IT services.

Last month, Internet portal Channel Insider reported: "Progeon, which has operations in various countries, including the United States, India, the United Kingdom and Czech Republic, will handle finance functions and basic support customer calls for Ingram Micro.

Progeon is a proven business process outsourcing provider, according to Keith Bradley, president of Ingram Micro North America. "They take business seriously and lead with customer service," Bradley said. "The Progeon team is highly skilled, professional and personable. We were impressed from Day One and are confident our customers and business partners will be too.'"

Pursuing non-voice BPO, presently a small portion of the $5.2 billion IT-enabled services exported from India, was "The future of BPO in an IT company", Nilekani said. Last fiscal, Progeon posted revenues of Rs 189.3 crore and net profits of Rs 33.9 crore.