Raman Roy quits Wipro Spectramind

Raman Roy, perhaps the grandfather of Indian business process outsourcing (BPO), has quit as the chief executive officer of Wipro Spectramind, one of the largest call centre businesses in the country.

Roy, who started Spectramind and later sold it to Wipro, told Business Standard, "I am not joining anybody, nor am I ready to retire."

He has several options before him and will make an announcement in three to four weeks. "The ability to raise capital and what I have learnt in the last 10 years are a tremendous advantage," he added.

Roy was a key player in the Indian BPO operations of the banking and financial services firm, American Express, which started the first major BPO venture in the country.

Amex's foray established the proof-of-concept of BPO in India the way Texas Instrument validated the offshore development model with its Bangalore unit. After American Express, Roy helped General Electric start and scale up its BPO operations in India. Thereafter he started his own venture, Spectramind.

Explaining Roy's move, K Ganesh, a serial entrepreneur himself, said, "The entrepreneurial spirit is hard to tie down with golden handcuffs." Ganesh's first venture was taken public and the second, Customer. Asset, sold to ICICI OneSource, another BPO outfit. He is now cooking his third and fourth ventures.

"The security, bureaucracy and cozy style of a large corporation is the antitheses of what a startup mind looks for. Getting a startup going is like the rush of adrenaline. It is hard to give up," he said.

Wipro Limited, on Monday, told the stock exchanges it had appointed T K Kurien, an insider, as the chief executive of its BPO business.

"The appointment has been made consequent to Mr Raman Roy's decision to resign from Wipro after a successful stint of over three years to pursue interests outside Wipro," the Bangalore headquartered IT services and diversified company said.

Prateek Kumar, head of human resources at Wipro, told Business Standard, the value of the transaction, when Wipro bought Spectramind, was paid out over a period that ended more than a year ago. That duration, of payment, was also the "lock-in" period during which Roy was expected to stay and help run the business.

Vivek Paul, Vice Chairman said, "We would like to acknowledge the significant contribution of Raman in building this business. His ability to envision the opportunity and his inspiring leadership in executing the vision were key in taking Wipro BPO to a position of undisputed leadership. We wish him well in his future endeavours."

Kurien was part of Wipro BPO, heading its transaction processing business initiative. His stint of seven years in Wipro, before being appointed as chief executive of Spectramind saw the company win a $70 m systems integration order from a UK based telecom service provider, Wipro said. Before Wipro, he worked as chief financial officer of Wipro GE Medical Systems and as chief executive officer of GE x-ray.