The Hindu Business Line : WNS aims at 60-pc revenue growth — To grow US business; to hire more here

WNS Global Services, an independent back-office service provider, plans to achieve a 50:50 revenue mix from contracts in the UK and the US by the end of the current year; at present its business is largely UK-driven, according to Mr Neeraj Bhargava, Group CEO at WNS.

The company also plans to expand its activities to one or two cities each in the north and south of India. "We want to increase our presence from 4 cities to six or seven cities by the end of next year," he said.

The company, which has 3,700 seats and can accommodate about 8,500 employees in all, is hiring at between 100 and 200 employees every month, he said. Currently, it has more than 5,000 employees at its centres in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik, and Colombo; and in its sales and marketing offices in New York and London.

The UK-driven nature of its business lies in the company having been originally a captive BPO of British Airways; today private equity investor Warbug Pincus owns the majority stake in it, with British Airways holding an "important minority stake".

The rest of the equity is held largely by the management of the company.

WNS, which has been ranked as the number one BPO in the country by Nasscom in June this year, has reported audited revenues of $103 million (according to the US GAAP) for the year ending March 31, 2004.

Revenues grew 84 per cent in 2003-2004, said the company, which says it is the first India-leveraged third party BPO to cross the $100-million mark.

The growth of 84 per cent is as a result of the company's strategy of reorganising its business into separate verticals for domain expertise, and the addition of 32 clients. The year also saw the transition of WNS from a captive to a third party player, said Mr Bhargava.

During the current fiscal, WNS expects revenues to grow 50 per cent to 60 per cent, said Mr Bhargava. A rather aggressive expansion plan, hardselling plans, as well as emphasis of its domain expertise in various verticals would ensure this, he said.

The company's foundation being the acquisition of BA's backoffice, one of its verticals for emphasis is travel and transportation.

WNS' acquisition of Town & Country (now renamed WNS Assistance) in the UK brought it a foothold in the motor insurance claims management vertical and its other acquisition ClaimsBPO one in the healthcare vertical as well.

WNS is now focused on travel and transportation, and insurance and financial services. "Today 7 out of the top 10 airlines globally, and 5 large insurance companies are our clients," said Mr Bhargava.

The company has also obtained one large retail industry client, the supermarket chain Tesco in the UK, one telecommunications client and several automobile fleet owners.

Mr Bhargava says WNS is not proactively looking at acquisitions although it would be very responsive to opportunities should they come by.

"There are a lot of deals and they come around. BPO companies today need a bigger revenue base and large global contracts, or they will face the pinch."