Call centres on hiring spree

BANGALORE: At a time when recruitments have decreased drastically in the software services sector, call centres here are on a hiring binge. Employment forecasts have gone totally awry if one goes by the situation on the ground.
Check this out.
• CustomerAsset: A two-year-old Bangalore-based contact centre, is doubling its manpower in the next three months, by adding 800 call agents.It will also be establishing its second call centre unit in the city. By the end of the current financial year it will be a 3,000-people entity.
Says K. Ganesh, CEO of CustomerAsset: ``Scaling up operations is now crucial. For us, the growth is primarily from existing clients, who have increased their outsourcing activities.''''
• 24/7Customer: The only COPC-certified company in the country, is adding over 800 agents in the next ten months, making it a 1,400 people organisation. According to D. S. Hariharan, VP, quality & operations, the company is recruiting around 100 call agents every month. ``Besides increased business from existing customers, we are adding three customers every quarter,'''' he added. A majority of the company''s 12 customers are Fortune 500 companies.
• iSeva: The Bangalore-based call centre will be adding 500 call agents during this year, taking the tally to 1,000 people. Currently, it has around 15 customers in financial, telecom and tech support areas.
• GE Capital: The world''s most admired company, GE, which pioneered the call centre concept in India, is setting up a 2,000-seat unit in Bangalore. Eventually, it will create over 4,000 jobs.
• TransWorks : Presently Mumbai-based, is coming to Bangalore to establish a 500-seat facility with an investment of $5 million.
• MsourcE: Part of the software services major, Mphasis-BFL, MsourcE is increasing its base in Bangalore by hiking capacity to 2000-seats.
• iBackOffice: Global Technology Venture-backed call centre is setting up a 20 acre campus with a built-up area of a 1,20,000 sq. ft. in Mangalore in addition to its 6,000 sq ft. centre in Bangalore.
The Mangalore facility with an initial capacity of over 3,000 representatives is tipped to be the largest in the state.
• FirstRing: It has a 550-seat call centre in Bangalore, which is engaged in voice, chat, e-mail-based call centre operations.
Among the company''s customers are a large Fortune 100 financial and travel-related services company and two large credit card organisations.
Qualification required: English-speaking graduate. Sounds simple, doesn''t it?
ICICI to take stake in CustomerAsset
Finance giant ICICI Ltd will be making a ``strategic investment'''' in CustomerAsset. ``As part of the new relationship, ICICI will be an ally of CustomerAsset in its go-to-market strategy,'''' a CustomerAsset official said.
Market sources say that besides ICICI, software heavyweight Satyam has shown interest to partner with the company to address the global technology sector.