The Hindu Business Line : vCustomer hopes to double revenues

VCUSTOMER Services India Pvt Ltd, a technology support, BPO and call centre services provider, expects to end the current fiscal with topline of $33 million, an 120-per cent growth over last year's $15 million.

The company, which has signed several major deals in the recent months, expects to sustain the growth momentum in next fiscal and is targeting revenue of $65 million, said Mr Sujit Bakshi, President, vCustomer.

The company, in a bid to enhance its seat utilisation, is planning to grow its back office business and add about 500 people to its existing strength of 200, Mr Bakshi said. It would also add 3,000 people for its tech-support business by end-2004, he said.

"We are presently doing some peripheral back office work for our existing clients in the tech support domain and want to get into transaction and claims processing," he said. The company is looking at its existing clients to grow its back office business even while tapping new domains such as insurance claims processing, he added.

vCustomer's current seat utilisation stands at 1.2 to 1.3. That is, the company is utilising its workstation in little over one shift of eight hours, whereas the same station could be utilised for three shifts in a day, eight hours each. Additional order flow in the back office space would increase seat utilisation to 1.5 by the end of the year, he added.

The company, at present, has a headcount of 3,000, of which over 2,000 people are in its technology support business while the rest are in the call centre business.

The company serves about 18 clients of which some seven are in the retail segment and the rest are technology companies.

The company is setting up its fourth centre in Delhi with a capacity of 500 seats. It is also in the process of setting up a 1,000-seat centre in Pune, which is scheduled to be operational later this year, he said.