Integreon, a US-based Knowldege Process Outsourcing (KPO) firm, with operations in India, has signed two deals in the recent past. One of the deals, with UK law firm Osborne Clarke, is for seven years and worth $75 million. The second deal is with an investment bank.
As part of these deals, around 80 employees of Osborne Clarke and around 35 employees from the investment bank will be absorbed by Integreon.
“Both the deals show a paradigm shift in the mindsets of these firms and reveal the changes that are happening in the KPO industry. These deals reaffirm the clients’ faith in us and on the confidentiality parameters we have in place. This also shows a readiness in transferring more complex work to the outsourcing players,” said Lokendra Tomar, CEO, Asia Pacific Region, Integreon.
For Osborne Clarke, Integreon will provide middle-office needs including technology and business intelligence services; knowledge and information management; transcription, secretarial, and word processing services. In the case of the investment bank, the firm will provide research support to its bankers.
Tomar added that with high-end work getting outsourced, the deal sizes in the KPO segment have gone up. The average value of contract in KPO used to be $1 million a year, but now that has gone up to $2-3 million. “Now the benchmark is shifting to $3 million per deal for a three-year period to $10 million for same period,” added Tomar.
Integreon has also been on track with its inorganic plans. The company recently closed the acquisition of US-based Onsite3, which provides electronic evidence solutions for law firms and companies. This will create a division worth $40 million for the company. Besides it is also looking for another acquisition of a legal firm by the second quarter of this year and a KPO in the research space in the second half of this year.
“We will acquire a total of three firms this year. This is one of the best times for acquisitions, especially in the US, where firms are going bankrupt and we have been receiving lot of inquiries from such banks. While most of them are not worth looking at, some are very good opportunities. In these cases, it is more of a cash flow issue but otherwise the business model is very good,” added Tomar.
Integreon has close to 1,200 people in India, 200 in Philippines and 1,00 in UK. The company is also planning to set up centres in China and Eastern Europe.
