The Indian Call Center Journey

"The call center business appears to be going the dot-com way with a lot of big names

pumping in dough. Ultimately, only the fittest will survive."

A Mumbai based call center agent, in 2001.

Call Centers Fare Badly

In the beginning of 1999, the teleworking industry had been hailed as 'the opportunity' for

Indian corporates in the new millennium. In late 2000, a NASSCOM1 study forecast that by

2008, the Indian IT enabled services business2 was set to reach great heights. Noted

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scholar, Michael Dertouzos remarked that India could

boost its GDP by a trillion dollars through the IT-enabled services sector. Call center (an integral part of

IT-enabled services) revenues were projected to grow from Rs 24 bn in 2000 to Rs 200 bn by 2010.

During 2000-01, over a hundred call centers were established in India ranging from 5000 sq. ft. to

100,000 sq. ft. in area involving investments of over Rs 12 bn.

However, by early 2001, things seemed to have taken a totally

different turn. The reality of the Indian call center experience

was manifested in rows after rows of cubicles devoid of

personnel in the call centers.

There just was no business coming in. In centers which did

retain the employees, they were seen sitting idle, waiting

endlessly for the calls to come.

Estimates indicated that the industry was saddled with idle

capacity worth almost $ 75-100 mn. Owners of a substantial

number of such centers were on the lookout for buyers. It was

surprising that call centers were having problems in recruiting

suitable entry-level agents even with attractive salaries being

offered.

The human resource exodus added to the industry's misery. Given the large number of

unemployed young people in the country, the attrition rate of over 50% (in some cases) was

rather surprising. The industry, which was supposed to generate substantial employment for

the country, was literally down in the dumps - much to the chagrin of industry experts, the

Government, the media and above all, the players involved. The future prospects of the call

center business seemed to be rather bleak indeed.

The Indian Call Center Journey - Next Page >>>

Call Center Basics

In 2001, the global call center industry was worth $ 800 mn spread across around 100,000 units. It was

expected to touch the 300,000 level by 2002 employing approximately 18 mn people. Broadly speaking,

a call center was a facility handling large volumes of inbound and outbound telephone calls, manned by

'agents,' (the people working at the center). In certain setups, the caller and the call center shared costs,

while in certain other cases, the clients bore the call's cost. The call center could be situated anywhere in

the world, irrespective of the client company's customer base. Call centers date back to the 1970s, when

the travel/hospitality industry in the US began to centralize their reservation centers. With the rise of

catalog shopping and outbound telemarketing, call centers became necessary for many industries. Each

industry had its own way of operating these centers, with its own standards for quality, and its own

preferred technologies.

The total number of people who worked at the center at any

given point of time were referred to as 'seats.' A center could

range from a small 5-10 seat set-up to a huge set-up with 500-

2,000 seats.

The calls could be for customer service, sales, marketing or

technical support in areas such as airline/hotel reservations,

banking or regarding telemarketing, market research, etc.

For instance, while a FMCG company could use the call centers

for better customer relationship management, for a

biotechnology company, the task could be of verifying genetic

databases. (Refer Table I). Call centers began as huge

establishments managing large volumes of communications and

traffic.

These centers were generally set up as large rooms, with workstations, interactive voice

response systems, an EPABX,3 headsets hooked into a large telecom switch and one or more

supervisor stations. (Refer Table II). The center was either an independent entity, or was

linked with other centers or to a corporate data network, including mainframes,

microcomputers and LANs4. Call centers could either be 'captive/in-house' or in form of an

'outsourced bureau.' Captive call centers were typically used by various segments like

insurance, investments and securities, retail banking, other financial services,

telecommunications, technology, utilities, manufacturing, travel and tourism, transport,

entertainment, healthcare and education etc.

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Call Center Basics Contd...

TABLE I

BENEFITS OF A CALL-CENTER

• Enhances the customer base and business prospects;

• Offers an economical means of reaching diverse and widely distributed

customer group;

• Fine-tunes offerings to specific customer groups by specialized and

focussed assistance;

• Allows customers easy access to experts;

• Facilitates business round the clock and in any geographical region;

• Allows a company to reduce the overheads of brick and mortar

branches.

Source: Compiled from various sources.

TABLE II

CALL CENTER CLASSIFICATION

• Voice call center with phones and computers.

• E-mail call center with leased lines and computers.

• Web-based call centers using internet chat facilities with customers.

• Regional call centers handling calls from local clients.

• Global call centers handling calls from across the world.

Source: Compiled from various sources.

Outsourcing bureaus were outfits with prior experience in running call centers. These helped

the new players in dealing with complex labor issues, assisted in using latest technologies,

helped in lowering the operating expenses and financial risks.

Outsourced bureau operators were utilized by companies at various stages viz. setting up of

the center, internal infrastructure revamps, excess traffic situations etc.

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Indian Call Centers – Myths and Realities

There were many reasons why India was considered an attractive destination to set up call centers. The

boom in the Indian information technology sector in the mid 1990s led to the country's IT strengths

being recognized all over the world.

Moreover, India had the largest English-speaking population after the US and had a vast workforce of

educated, reasonably tech-savvy personnel.

In a call center, manpower typically accounted for 55-60% of the total costs in the US and European

markets - in India, the manpower cost was approximately one-tenth of this. While per agent cost in US

worked out to approximately $ 40,000, in India it was only $ 5,000.

This was cited to be the biggest advantage India could offer to

the MNCs. Apart from these, the Government's pro call center

industry approach and a virtual 12-hour time zone difference

with the US added to India's advantages.

There were a host of players in the Indian call center industry.

Apart from the pioneers British Airways, GE and Swiss Air, HLL,

BPL, Godrej Soaps, Global Tele-Systems, Wipro, ICICI Banking

Corporation, American Express, Bank of America, Citibank, ABN

AMRO, Global Trust, Deutsche Bank, Airtel, and Bharati BT were

the other major players in the call-center business.

After the projections of the NASSCOM-McKinsey report were made public, many people

began thinking of entering the call center business. (Refer Table III).

During this rush to make money from the call center 'wave,' NASSCOM received queries

from many people with spare cash and space, including lorry-fleet operators, garment

exporters, leather merchants, tyre distributors and plantation owners among others.

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Indian Call Centers – Myths and Realities Contd...

TABLE III

THE INDIAN CALL-CENTER MILESTONES

Mid 1990s GE, Swiss Air, British Airways set up captive call center units for their

global needs.

May 1999

Following increasing interest in the IT-enabled services sector,

NASSCOM held the first IT-enabled services meet. Over 600

participant firms plan to set up medical transcription outfits and call

centers.

December

1999

A NASSCOM-McKinsey report says that remote services could

generate $ 18 billion of annual revenues by 2008.

May 2000 Venture Capitalists rush in. Make huge investments in call centers.

September

2000

More than 1,000 participants flock to the NASSCOM meet to hear

about new opportunities in remote services. Though the medical

transcription business is not flourishing, call centers seen as a big

opportunity.

Quarter 4

2000

NASSCOM report, indicates that a center could be set up with $ 1

million. Gold rush begins. Everyone, from plantation owners to lorry-

fleet operators, wanted to set up centers.

Quarter 1,

2001

Most of the call centers are waiting for customers. New ventures still

coming up: capacity of between 25 seats and 10,000 seats per

company. Small operators discover that the business is a black hole

where investments just disappear. They look for buyers, strategic

partnerships and joint ventures. Brokers and middlemen make an

entry to fix such deals.

However, most of these people entered the field, without having any idea as to what the

business was all about. Their knowledge regarding the technology involved, the marketing

aspects, client servicing issues etc was very poor. They assumed that by offering cheaper

rates, they would be able to attract clients easily. They did not realize that more than easy

access to capital and real estate, the field required experience and a sound business

background. Once they decided to enter the field, they found that most of the capital

expenditure (in form of building up the infrastructure5) occurred even before the first client

was bagged. These players seemed to have neglected the fact that most successful call

centers were quite large and had either some experience in the form of promoters having

worked abroad in similar ventures or previous experience with such ventures or were

subsidiaries of foreign companies.

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Indian Call Centers – Myths and Realities Contd...

The real trouble started when these companies began soliciting clients. As call centers were

a new line of business in India, the lack of track record forced the clients to go for much

detailed and prolonged studies of the Indian partners. Many US clients insisted on a strict

inspection of the facilities offered, such as work-areas, cafeterias and even the restrooms.

The clients expected to be shown detailed Service Level Agreements (SLAs)6, which a

majority of the Indian firms could not manage. Under these circumstances, no US company

was willing to risk giving business to amateurs at the cost of losing their customers. Because

of the inadequate investments in technology, lack of processes to scale the business7 and the

lack of management capabilities, most of the Indian players were unable to get international customers.

Even for those who did manage to rope in some clients, the

business was limited. As if these problems were not enough, the

players hit another roadblock - this time in form of the high labor

turnover problem. Agent performance was the deciding factor in

the success of any call center. Companies had recognized

agents as one of the most important and influential points of

contact between the business and the customer. However, it

was this very set of people whom the Indian call centers were

finding extremely difficult to recruit and more importantly,

retain. In 2000, the average attrition rate in the industry was 40-

45%, with about 10-15% of the staff quitting within the first two

months itself. Even though attrition rates were very high in this

industry worldwide, the same trend was not expected to emerge

in India, as the unemployment levels were much higher.

The reasons were not very hard to understand. In a eight-and-a-half hour shift, the agents

had to attend calls for seven-and-a-half hours. The work was highly stressful and

monotonous with frequent night shifts. A typical call center agent could be described as

being 'overworked, underpaid, stressed-out and thoroughly bored.'

The agents were frequently reported to develop an identity crisis because of the 'dual

personality' they had to adopt. They had to take on European/US names or abbreviate their

own names and acquire foreign accents in order to pose as 'locals.' The odd timings took a

toll on their health with many agents complaining of their biological clocks being disturbed.

(Especially the ones in night shifts).

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Indian Call Centers – Myths and Realities Contd...

Job security was another major problem, with agents being fired frequently for not being able to adhere

to the strict accuracy standards. (Not more than one mistake per 100 computer lines.) The industry did

not offer any creative work or growth opportunities to keep the workers motivated. The scope for

growth was very limited. For instance, in a 426-seat center, there were 400 agents, 20 team leaders,

four service delivery leaders, one head of department and one head of business. Thus, going up the

hierarchy was almost impossible for the agents. Analysts remarked that the fault was mainly in the

recruitment, training, and career progression policies of the call centers. Organizations that first set up

call centers in India were able to pick and choose the best talent available.

The entry norms established at this point were - a maximum age

limit of 25 years, a minimum qualification of a university degree,

English medium school basic education and a preference to

candidates belonging to westernized and well-off upper middle

class families. The companies hence did not have to spend too

much time and effort in training the new recruits on the two

important aspects of a good level of spoken and written English

and a good exposure to western culture and traditions.

However, companies soon realized that people with such

backgrounds generally had much higher aspirations in life. While

they were initially excited to work in the excellent working

environment of a multinational company for a few months, they

were not willing to make a career in the call center industry.

They generally got fed up and left within a few months when the

excitement waned.

A consistently high attrition rate affected not only a center's profits but also customer

service and satisfaction. This was because a new agent normally took a few months before

becoming as proficient as an experienced one. This meant that opportunities for providing

higher levels of customer service were lost on account of high staff turnover.8

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Future Prospects

The Indian call center majors were trying to handle the labor exodus through various measures.

Foremost amongst these was the move to employ people from social and academic backgrounds

different from the norms set earlier. Young people passing out of English medium high schools and

universities and housewives and back-to-work mothers looking for suitable opportunities were

identified as two of the biggest possible recruitment pools for the industry. Such students with a good

basic level of English could be trained easily to improve their accents, pronunciation, grammar, spelling

and diction. They could be trained to become familiar with western culture and traditions. The

housewives and back-to-work mothers' pool could also be developed into excellent resources. This had

been successfully tried out in the US and European markets, where call centers employed a large

number of housewives and back-to-work mothers.

Another solution being thought about was to recruit people from

non-metros, as people from these places were deemed to be

more likely to stay with the organization, though being more

difficult to recruit and expensive to train. Even as the people and

infrastructure problems were being tackled, a host of other

issues had cropped up, posing threats for the Indian call centers.

The promise of cheap, English speaking and technically aware

labor from India was suddenly not as lucrative in the

international markets. A survey of Fortune 1,000 companies on

their outsourcing concerns showed that cost-reduction was not

the most important criterion for selecting an outsourcing

partner. This did not augur well for a country banking on its cost

competitiveness.

Also, China was fast emerging as a major threat to India, as it had embarked on a massive

plan to train people in English to overcome its handicap in the language. In February 2001,

Niels Kjellerup, editor and publisher of 'Call Center Managers Forum' came out strongly

against India being promoted as an ideal place to set up call centers. He said: "The English

spoken by Indians is a very heavy dialect – in fact, in face to face conversations, I found it

very difficult to understand what was said. How will this play out over the telephone with

people much less educated that my conversation partners? The non-existent customer

service culture in India will make training of reps mandatory and difficult, since such a luxury

as service is not part of everyday life in India.

The Indian Call Center Journey - Next Page >>>

Future Prospects Contd...

The infrastructure is bad, no, make that antiquated: The attempts by a major US corporation to set up a

satellite link has so far been expensive and not very successful. Electricity infrastructure is going from

bad to worse – in fact during my stay at a 5 star hotel and at the corporate HQ of a big MNC, we had on

average 7 black-outs a day where the generators would kick in after 2-3 seconds.

The telephony system is analog and inadequate. It took on average three attempts just to get a line of

out my hotel. The telecom market is not deregulated, and international calls are very expensive. The

business culture and the mix of Government intervention will be a cultural shock for Western business

people with no previous experience.

Add to this a lack of a call center industry and very few people

with call center experience which makes it very hard to recruit

call center managers with a proven track record."

Despite the mounting criticisms and worries, hope still existed

for the Indian call center industry. Analysts remarked that the

call center business was in the midst of a transition, wherein

only the fundamentally strong players would remain in the fray

after an inevitable 'shakeout.'

Unlike other industries, the shakeout in this industry was not

only because of an over supply of call center providers, but also

because of the quality of supply offered. In spite of the

downturn, the call center business was considered to hold a lot

of potential by many corporates.

With the US economy facing a slowdown, the need for US companies to outsource was

expected to be even higher. The Reliance group was planning to open call centers in 10

cities across the country. Other companies including Spectramind and Global Telesystems

planned to either enter or enhance their presence in the business. Whether the dream of call

centers contributing to substantial economic growth for India would turn into reality was

something only time would reveal.

Exhibits

Exhibit I: Call Center Terminology

Building a call center

Manjushree Infotech wanted to enter the IT Enabled Services space and

decided to set up a call center in Kolkata. Although inexperienced in the call

center business, the company decided upon the appropriate technology and

solution platform after evaluation. by Soutiman Das Gupta

Manjushree Infotech decided to enter the IT Enabled Services (ITES) space

because it felt that this area had a lot of business potential. It received a

mandate from the Health Management Organization (HMO) in USA to support

its call center in Tampa, Florida. And in order to support the operations of this

facility, Manjushree Infotech decided to set up a call center in Kolkata with the

required infrastructure.

THE SOLUTION PLAN

The plan was to build a small setup comprising 25

seats which could scale up when business picked up

and new clients were acquired. The company had to

keep a number of aspects in mind in order to plan the

setup.

"We had to look for a technology platform and a call

center solution that would be quick to deploy keeping

in mind our customer's need, address our expansion

plans, and support a future need for convergence,"

said Sam Swaminathan, CEO, Manjushree Infotech.

The solution had to be scalable enough to support the

company's expansion plans. It had to be built on an

integrated single infrastructure in order to exploit the

convergence in data, voice, and video. It was

compulsory for the WAN to have QoS features since

voice would be the primary medium of

communication. And the solution had to support

multimedia applications and use the benefits of

convergence to deliver multiple modes of interaction

with customers.

It was also important to build the converged, multi-

service infrastructure based on IP. The availability of

a wide variety of applications on IP for voice, data

and video were highlighted as key drivers for the

adoption of technology. And this infrastructure had to

interoperate seamlessly with legacy PBX, based on TDM voice in the US.

"Since we had no prior experience with call centers and there were various

solutions available in the market to address our needs, we decided to adopt an

extensive evaluation process. All vendors presented their suggested technology

direction for voice and video to our decision-makers and teams of technical

consultants belonging to our customer in the US," said Amit Choudhury,

Principal Consultant, Manjushree Infotech.

The company conducted discussions with various vendors like Lucent, Nortel,

and Cisco for architectural designs and directions for the call center technology.

"We chose Cisco because it had the requisite experience and expertise in

setting up call centers. Cisco also promised to stay focused on customer

In a nutshell

The companyManjushree Infotech is a part of the B.K. Birla Group of Companies. It wanted to enter the IT Enabled Services space and decided to set up a call center in Kolkata.

The problemSince it had no experience in call centers the company had to decide upon the appropriate technology and platform on which to construct the

solution.

The solutionThe company deployed an appropriate call center solution which had QoS features and supported voice, data, and multimedia integration

capabililties.

The benefitsThe call center is able to support 1,600 incoming calls a day. Customers can use multiple reporting capabilities through e-mail, voice, and the Web. It enables the company to track expenses and agent productivity.

satisfaction and offered an end-to-end solution," said Swaminathan.

IMPLEMENTATION

The implementation process began with the setup of a WAN, which connected

Kolkata to the Tampa Florida-based call center. A 512K leased line link was set

up via satellite. The link connected to the LAN at the Manjushree call center in

Kolkata. This allowed the call center agents to communicate with HMO's US

customers.

The company deployed Cisco's IP Voice Gateway and LAN gear, like the Cisco

3600 series routers and the Cisco 4000 series switch. The IP Voice Gateway was

linked with the legacy PBX in the US and supported

TDM voice call termination in the US. It also allowed

the conversion of calls to IP for transporting to India.

The company then deployed Cisco IPCC (IP Contact

Center) and Cisco IP Telephony solutions at the call

center LAN at Kolkata.

Cisco's IPCC & IP Telephony solution comprised:

Cisco Intelligent Contact Management (ICM) Cisco IP IVR (Interactive Voice Response)

Cisco Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) Desktop

Cisco Collaboration Server

Cisco Call Manager

Cisco IP Phones

"There were a few delivery issues with the equipment

which were solved quickly. The Call Manager software

needed to be tuned a bit and router software versions

had to be upgraded", said Choudhury.

The functions

The solutions helped to combine software Automated

Call Distribution (ACD) functionality with IP telephony

in a unified environment. The call center can also

extend its current infrastructure to connect other

geographically distant contact centers it may open in

future.

The ICM software provides ACD functionality including

Disaster recovery set up

PowerTwo UPSs take over in case of a failure. Each is capable of supporting the entire load for 40 minutes. A full load generator can take over within two minutes of a blackout.

Voice switchesEach Cisco Catalyst 4006 switch has two modules with 48 ports in each. This can support 48 agent seats.

Contact Manager softwareThe central controlling system of the call center is the Intelligent Contact Manager (ICM) software from Cisco. Two Compaq DL 380 servers running two copies of ICM that mirror each other act as failover in case of disaster.

Call Manager softwareThe primary system that controls all the calls of the call center is the Central Call Manager (CCM) from Cisco. The setup has two CCMs running on separate hardware boxes that act as a

failover for the other.

monitoring and control of agent state, routing and queuing of contacts, CTI

capabilities, real-time data for agents and supervisors, and historical reporting.

The IVR unit performs self-service functions and call treatment messages to

queued callers.

The CTI Desktop delivers a set of customer-specific information collected from

the Internet, carrier networks, IVRs, databases, and other applications to the

desktop of the call center agents. The agent can view the data and get pop-up

screens which provide more information.

The Cisco Collaboration Server provides customers multiple communication

choices like e-mail and Web-based chat. And the Cisco Call Manager software

provides traditional PBX telephony features and functions like basic call

processing, signaling, and connection services to a packet telephony device like

an IP phone.

A VoIP gateway was deployed at the Tampa Florida call center.

FRUITS OF LABOR

The call center began operations on January 04, 2000 and now handles around

1,600 incoming calls a day. Each call consumes around 11.2 Kbps bandwidth.

The company is able to integrate PSTN and Web-based communication

channels through Web collaboration and e-mail response management

capabilities. Since the solution is on IP, the architecture is open, and able to

support interoperability with other vendor devices and applications.

The solution also provides multiple reporting capabilities with various views of

resource utilization. It enables the company to track expenses and agent

productivity and provides dynamic reporting to end-customers.

IN FUTURE

The company plans to increase the number of seats to 100 and perhaps more

when new customers are acquired. It also plans to upgrade its WAN link to 2

Mbps.

Soutiman Das Gupta can be reached at soutimand@networkmagazineindia.com

Case Study

About Client and Company:

The client, based in Columbus, is a leading and trusted provider of government assisted wireless services

and non-lifeline telecom services. The company wanted a complete back up support system to cater its

need of back-office operations where the applications of candidates can be tracked and verified to

expedite the processes. The company was also looking for one stop source which can take care of their

extensive and growing numbers of customers and provide them better and prompt services.

Analysis:

The client was specially concerned about the numbers of applications and the time of response taken by

in-house staff. This was not only resulting in wastage of time but also in loss of customers to the

competitors. Once we presented them our delivery model of work, since then, they have been associated

with us, and we are proudly handling their back-office and customer support operations.

Our Solution :

We deployed expert call center agents who were well versed in English and had accurate and effective

account knowledge. The purpose was to assist the customers effectively and quickly. The customers

were provided with toll-free numbers so that they would not hesitate to call. To make services more

customer centric, we initiated two shifts of working- one which would work in night to complement the day

hours according to western zone of timings and other in daytime as per Indian Standard Time. To cope up

with the elaborate and painstaking work of processing applications, callcenterinindia. info employed

expert back office administration workers.

Results :

Now, the team at callcenterinindia.info caters about 60, 000 customers on monthly basis. We have not

been able to meet the expectations of our client but have been able to elate the company with our

services. We provide bi-monthly progress and performance reports to our client as well.

Client talks:

Thanks for providing such an excellent support. I appreciate your timely help and for offering such a

wonderful outsourcing experience.

Program Performance :

We are consistently achieving new benchmarks and exceeding services level expectations. We are

handling about 50, 000 customers on monthly basis for this client and adding more than 60 percent as

customer acquisitions monthly,

Call Center Development and Implementation Projects

Scenario

Today, Customer is the king and information in right time is the need of the hour. The BSNL customer were facing a lot of difficulty in (1) Accessing the information about the services being offered by BSNL (2) Getting value added services (3) Information pertaining to himself (4) Complaints related to services. The

solution of the same was an integrated Call Center with all the CRM working in the operation unit.

Requirement

Telecom and Energy was looking for a call center blended both inbound and outbound to cater the services being asked by their potential and existing customers. The Call Center should have the basic feature of integrating with different kind of CRM packages working across the operational units. The system required should be scalable both in terms of increasing the service requirement and changes happening in the world of telecom services. Scope & SIS OFFERS:

Technology

We have variety of solution for various business verticals to provide complete solution in terms of contact center. Out solution is tightly integrated with existing CRM so that it covers all aspects of the business contact to give highly satisfied experience to their customer.

We have call center solution based on different technology, mainly 1. Switch based Call center

2. Server based Call center ( Dialogic )

SIS offers number of solution depending upon requirements of out client and flexibility to integrate with their business requirements.

1. Inbound Call Center 2. Outbound call center

3. Predictive dialer

4. Auto Dialer

5. Preview Dialer

6. Inbound/outbound call center

Components

SaiCall is complete suite consists of various modules to operate call center or contact center in different situation.

1. CTI Server 2. Flexible IVRS

3. Agent Client

4. Administrator client

5. Scheduler/Calendar

6. Monitor and Alarms

7. Reports

8. Workforce Management

Critical Success Factors:

Integration of existing CRM Servers: BSNL has different packages working for CRM activities across the operational units. These CRM can exist in Oracle/Sybase/DB2/SQLServer and even in Foxpro.

Application to match Local Scenario: The requirement of services being offered through these call center is geography specific and depends on the customer base and competition scenario. SIS does the case study of the requirement and presents the complete solution to meet the requirement and configure the

application to meet the requisite.

Training Agents and Supervisor: SIS do understand that any system integration project is incomplete without the handing over of the technical knowhow and operational knowledge to the customers. SIS practices this in action and hands over the complete knowledge to the customers so that the operations of the call center can be handled by the customer himself without the hindrance.

Project done so far

1. Ahmedabad Telecom District - BSNL (Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)

2. Gujarat GSM -BSNL ( 150 seats Switch based Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)

3. Rajsthan BSNL (Call center Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)

4. UP(West) BSNL (all centers spread across Noida, Meerut and Bareilly Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)

5. UP(East) BSNL (Call center Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)

6. Kerala - BSNL (Call center Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System) spread across Trivendrum, Ernakulam, Trichur and Calicut.

7. MP BSNL (Call center Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)

8. Raipur BSNL (Call center Inbound/Outbound Call center integrated with CRM/Billing System)

9. iCall,i Factor, Ahmedabad Predictive Dialer International

10. BJP, New Delhi - Unified Messaging System

11. ONGC Mumbai - Unified Messaging System

12. MGVCL Call Centers at Vadodara, Anand and Godhra in Gujarat.

Call Center Offshore Outsourcing - A Case StudyFlatworld transformed the sales process for a global software and services company based in the US. They

were looking at expanding their India operations and Flatworld bagged the contract and delivered lucrative call

center offshore outsourcing services.

The Customer

Our customer was a leading global software and services company based in Minneapolis and listed by

NASDAQ..

Flatworld has done diverse call center offshore outsourcing work and cater to customers from all over the

world. From Fortune 500 companies to individual entrepreneurs, from those who wish to establish a presence

and create more channels for their business to those who require complex applications and more interactivity,

we have rendered to them all.

The Challenge

The customer, addressing mid market companies globally had successfully established a development center

in Bangalore and was looking at expanding the scope of activities in India. They were interested in

understanding how the developing IT enabled services industry in India could be leveraged. IT enabled

services include Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Back Office Operations like, Accounting, Data

Entry, Data Conversion, Finance & Accounting, HR Services, Transcription Services, Content Development,

Animation, Engineering, Other Services including Remote Education and Market Research Services.

Flatworld was singled out as the best fit to undertake their call center offshore outsourcing.

The Solution

Flatworld was awarded the contract for the customer’s call center offshore outsourcing

based on the solution it highlighted to drive the customers' sales process. Our solution included:

A team based in India, that had the required sales skills, communication skills and poise to open doors

for the company’s highly skilled product specialists to take the sales process to the next phase.

Design of a pilot program

A team of Flatworld’s B2B specialists

Relevant training for two weeks to make the first level pitch

The Result

The initial pilot program we designed for the call center offshore outsourcing service was an unqualified

success. The customer then decided to extend our call center offshore outsourcing services to other business

divisions and product categories.

After Flatworld’s pilot, the initial market scope extended from the USA to cover the UK, Canada and

Anglophone Africa. Extensions were not only in business divisions, products and market scope but also in

budgets. The marked increase in productivity of the in-market sales team resulted in the extension of budgets

as well.

Customer Response

The customer remarked that the call center offshore outsourcing deal they got from Flatworld was extremely

successful, as the results from the pilot paid for Flatworld’s subsequent quarterly service fees!

The customer thought it was important to build a team rapport across customer and service provider. They

made it mandatory for the in-market sales team to visit the development center in India and our sales support

team and interact on a more personal level.

The customer also expressed that the company strategy to differentiate itself from competitors in terms of the

quality of staff deployed in its initial customer facing interaction and solution development was a success.

Read this Case Study on Call Center Services offered by Flatworld to a leading global Call Center Operator.

Outsource your call center needs to Flatworld now.

Learn more about Flatworld's Success Stories.

Some Indian Case Studies:

1 Pune Citibank MphasiS Call Center Fraud

US $ 3,50,000 from accounts of four US customers were dishonestly transferred to bogus accounts. This will give a lot of ammunition to those lobbying against outsourcing in US. Such cases happen all over the world but when it happens in India it is a serious matter and we can not ignore it. It is a case of sourcing engineering. Some employees gained the confidence of the customer and obtained their PIN numbers to commit fraud. They got these under the guise of helping the customers out of difficult situations. Highest security prevails in the call centers in India as they know that they will lose their business. There was not as much of breach of security but of sourcing engineering.

The call center employees are checked when they go in and out so they can not copy down numbers and therefore they could not have noted these down. They must have remembered these numbers, gone out immediately to a cyber café and accessed the Citibank accounts of the customers.

All accounts were opened in Pune and the customers complained that the money from their accounts was transferred to Pune accounts and that’s how the criminals were traced. Police has been able to prove the honesty of the call center and has frozen the accounts where the money was transferred.

There is need for a strict background check of the call center executives. However, best of background checks can not eliminate the bad elements from coming in and breaching security. We must still ensure such checks when a person is hired. There is need for a national ID and a national data base where a name can be referred to. In this case preliminary investigations do not reveal that the criminals had any crime history. Customer education is very important so customers do not get taken for a ride. Most banks are guilt of not doing this.  

 2 Baazee.com caseCEO of Baazee.com was arrested in December 2004 because a CD with objectionable material was being sold on the website. The CD was also being sold in the markets in Delhi. The Mumbai city police and the Delhi Police got into action. The CEO was later released on bail. This opened up the question as to what kind of distinction do we draw between Internet Service Provider and Content Provider. The burden rests on the accused that he was the Service Provider and not the Content Provider. It also raises a lot of issues regarding how the police should handle the cyber crime cases and a lot of education is required.

3 State of Tamil Nadu Vs Suhas KattiThe Case of Suhas Katti is notable for the fact that the conviction was achieved successfully within a relatively quick time of 7 months from the filing of the FIR. Considering that similar cases have been pending in other states for a much longer time, the efficient handling of the case which happened to be the first case of the Chennai Cyber Crime Cell going to trial deserves a special mention.

The case related to posting of obscene, defamatory and annoying message about a divorcee woman in the yahoo message group. E-Mails were also forwarded to the victim for information by the accused through a false e-mail account opened by him in the name of the victim. The posting of the message resulted in annoying phone calls to the lady in the belief that she was soliciting.

Based on a complaint made by the victim in February 2004, the Police traced the accused to Mumbai and arrested him within the next few days. The accused was a known family friend of the victim and was reportedly interested in marrying her. She however married another person. This marriage later ended in divorce and the accused started contacting her once again. On her reluctance to marry him, the accused took up the harassment through the Internet.

On 24-3-2004 Charge Sheet was filed u/s 67 of IT Act 2000, 469 and 509 IPC before The Hon’ble Addl. CMM Egmore by citing 18 witnesses and 34 documents and material objects. The same was taken on file in C.C.NO.4680/2004. On the prosecution side 12 witnesses were examined and entire documents were marked as Exhibits.

The Defence argued that the offending mails would have been given either by ex-husband of the complainant or the complainant her self to implicate the accused as accused alleged to have turned down the request of the complainant to marry her.

Further the Defence counsel argued that some of the documentary evidence was not sustainable under Section 65 B of the Indian Evidence Act. However, the court relied upon the expert witnesses and other evidence produced before it, including the witnesses of the Cyber Cafe owners and came to the conclusion that the crime was conclusively proved. Ld. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Egmore, delivered the judgement on 5-11-04 as follows:

" The accused is found guilty of offences under section 469, 509 IPC and 67 of IT Act 2000 and the accused is convicted and is sentenced for the offence to undergo RI for 2 years under 469 IPC and to pay fine of Rs.500/-and for the offence u/s 509 IPC sentenced to undergo 1 year Simple imprisonment and to pay fine of Rs.500/- and for the offence u/s 67 of IT Act 2000 to undergo RI for 2 years and to pay fine of Rs.4000/- All sentences to run concurrently."

The accused paid fine amount and he was lodged at Central Prison, Chennai. This is considered as the first case convicted under section 67 of Information Technology Act 2000 in India.

4 PARLIAMENT ATTACK CASEBureau of Police Research and Development at Hyderabad had handled some of the top cyber cases, including analysing and retrieving information from the laptop recovered from terrorist, who attacked Parliament. The laptop which was seized from the two terrorists, who were gunned down when Parliament was under siege on December 13 2001, was sent to Computer Forensics Division of BPRD after computer experts at Delhi failed to trace much out of its contents.

The laptop contained several evidences that confirmed of the two terrorists’ motives, namely the sticker of the Ministry of Home that they had made on the laptop and pasted on their ambassador car to gain entry into Parliament House and the the fake ID card that one of the two terrorists was carrying with a Government of India emblem and seal.

The emblems (of the three lions) were carefully scanned and the seal was also craftly made along with residential address of Jammu and Kashmir. But careful detection proved that it was all forged and made on the laptop.

5 Andhra Pradesh Tax CaseDubious tactics of a prominent businessman from Andhra Pradesh was exposed after officials of the department got hold of computers used by the accused person. The owner of a plastics firm was arrested and Rs 22 crore cash was recovered from his house by sleuths of the Vigilance Department. They sought an explanation from him regarding the unaccounted cash within 10 days.

The accused person submitted 6,000 vouchers to prove the legitimacy of trade and thought his offence would go undetected but after careful scrutiny of vouchers and

contents of his computers it revealed that all of them were made after the raids were conducted.

It later revealed that the accused was running five businesses under the guise of one company and used fake and computerised vouchers to show sales records and save tax.

SELECTED ASIA / PACIFIC CASES:

The following section provides a selection of actions taken against file-sharing Web sites and P2P services in the Asia/Pacific region, focusing on Australia, China, Japan and South Korea.

1. In Australia’s largest copyright infringement case, three university students received criminal sentences for running a Web site called MP3/WMA Land, which offered more than 1,800 pirated songs for download. In light of their age at the time and the fact that they never profited from their actions, the court warranted 18-month suspended sentences for two of the students and an additional fine of US$5,000 for one of them. Moreover, one student and a third participant were given 200 hours of community service.

2. Reportedly, China has become a leading exporter of counterfeit and pirated goods to the world. The U.S. industry estimates the value of counterfeit goods in China at US$19 billion to US$24 billion, with losses to U.S. companies exceeding US$1.8 billion a year. The severe piracy problems derive from a combination of cultural, historic and economic factors and are further aggravated by inconsistent, weak enforcement by officials. File-sharing Web sites and networks such as Jelawat and Kuro have been developing rapidly, too. The distributors of P2P software claim that file-sharing falls within the private use exception to copyright, but the Supreme People’s Court of China rejected this interpretation. Increasingly, copyright owners and right organizations are challenging file-sharing Web sites on copyright infringement claims.

3. The Beijing No 1 People’s Court ruled in April 2004 that the Web site chinamp3.com violated the IP rights of Hong Kong-based entertainment companies Go East Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment (Hong Kong), and ordered the site to pay US$19,000 in damages. The suit concerned the unauthorized distribution of MP3 music files. The defendant argued that he had merely provided links for download and not a direct download service, and therefore should not be held responsible for the IP rights violations. According to observers, the court’s ruling may prove to be a significant development in the nascent field of Chinese copyright enforcement in the digital age.

Copyright: http://www.cyber.law.harvard.edu/media/files/wpsupplement2005.pd

Fusion BPO Services – Business Per Opportunity

 

        

Growth in business is what you desire and we spare no efforts to help you get that. We believe that BPO is not just about “outsourcing”. Rather, it is an ongoing process that has covered miles today, including everything that may mean good for your business from sustaining existing business, diving in new business and eventually maintaining the overall growth as well.

The considerable growth of the business process outsourcing industry has led to the inclusion of new opportunities, making it a stepped process promising

business growth. Be it taking best care of your potential customers, management of all your important data, or trouble shooting technical problems or administration issues, BPO brings you advantages in all forms.

The need of the hour is to sustain and survive, generating business at the same time. What will be the ideal way to accomplish your endeavors? Let BPO professionals seek out the ways for you, while you stress on the core competencies of your business leaving behind the tension of planning, analyzing, management, strategizing and recruitment.

Fusion BPO Services: Step to Quality Customer Care

At Fusion BPO Services, you get a spirited team of call center professionals working for you 24/7/365. We let you concentrate on your major business goals, while we carry out the other peripheral activities for you. Why? Our call center team is here to offer your business the edge that you have been looking for. `

You get Fusion BPO as a global service provider offering advanced business process outsourcing services to several organizations seeking greater flexibility, higher operational effectiveness and low operating costs. Today, Fusion has 8 strategically located call center set-ups in India, Philippines, Australia, United States and United Kingdom. The plan of opening more and more call center units is still on cards. Spending over 9 years in this competitive business process outsourcing industry has given us the expertise to make companies count on our essential BPO-call center services.

Fusion BPO brings you client–centric business process outsourcing solutions in all respect. Add to the business-friendly design of the BPO-contact center services, which are perfectly categorized into Outbound Call Center Services, Inbound Call Center Services and Back Office Support.

We strive to be a true business process outsourcing partner for our clients. Companies those have been working with us all through, leverage on our all round call center services while we ensure to offer them a competitive advantage. Our call center system features Technical Support, Virtual Assistance, Database Management, Customer Support and Remote Infrastructure Support.

Our advanced BPO-call center services stimulate your business growth, maximizing its potential. We know that everything else stands minor in front of the enduring

fundamentals of the time, quality and commitment that we put forward through our actions. After all, your business needs to grow and with us it gets the means to grow!

Why Fusion? 

We are committed, we are determined, we are for quality. And above all, we bring a perfect match of all- yes, we call ourselves Fusion BPO. We welcome you to be a part of our finest BPO-call center solutions to fuel your business dreams.

What makes us an ultimate BPO company?  

Availability of well defined BPO processes Continuous focus on what our clients needs

Use of robust call center technologies

Domain and process specific knowledge

Workflow orientation

24x7x365 call center support

Effective business process outsourcing solutions for call center needs

Advanced processes maximizing high returns on investment

Significant cost reductions

Sales conversions

Feel free to contact us for all kinds of call center requirements. Reach us for business enquiries by filling out the Contact us form. We are also available at 1-866-581-0038 or mail us at contact@fusionbposervices.com