The Hindu Business Line : Offshoring helps keep many a UK pub in good cheer

Mumbai, March 29 Sipping on their mugs of beer at the neighbourhood pub in Britain — some of them perhaps holding strong views against the concept of outsourcing to low-cost destinations — pub-crawlers there would little know that an Indian BPO company enables their favourite drinking hole and 1,400 others in the UK to remain profitable!

The Mumbai-based Compass BPO provides back-office finance and accounting services to one of the leading license trade (pub) accounting companies in UK, which in turn provides accounting, taxation and payroll services to hundreds of pubs in that country, said Mr Devesh Nayel, Chief Executive Officer, Compass BPO Ltd.

Outsourcing enables these pubs to reduce the costs associated with hiring a full-time accountant. Hiring the services of an accountant in the UK would cost a pub £20,000-25,000 every year. The tie-up with the Indian BPO enables the UK accounting firm (the name of which Compass refuses to divulge) to bring down the cost for pubs to £3,000 annually. The offshoring has enabled the UK firm to save about £2,50,000 every year, which is five per cent of its annual turnover.

Breweries gain

These pubs in the UK are generally franchisees of large breweries and are used as distribution points for their products. The analyses provided by Compass enable breweries to keep a tab on the pubs’ performance and understand which of its own brands are doing well and where. It is estimated that if a pub goes bust in the UK, the associated brewery company takes a hit of about £20,000-£30,000.

“Moreover, Compass provides much more than mere transaction accounting; it is able to recognise trends, provide analysis and commentary on the performance of the business and make it known to the client,” said Mr Nayel. Compass employs about 135 persons in its food and beverage vertical.

UK has a deeply established pub culture, the oldest pub in England dating back to the 11th century. For a population of about 60 million, there are about 60,000 pubs in the country.

Compass BPO now intends to take this shared services model to other businesses such as restaurants, hotels and retail shops overseas.

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