The Hindu Business Line : 24/7 Customer sees rise in volumes

Bangalore, Dec. 4 Business process outsourcing company 24/7 Customer expects increase in volumes over next two to three quarters as clients seek to push work to low cost destinations in an attempt to rationalise costs as the global economy worsens.

24/7 Customer said its assessment is that companies, as part of their cost rationalisation exercise, would either push more work offshore, or reduce and shrink their onshore presence without affecting their offshoring strategy.

“There is no impact so far. We are positive about the outlook,” said Mr V Bharathwaj, Chief Marketing Officer. “We expect that things will accelerate because when the companies outside India face cost constraints, they will think of doing the same thing in a more cost effective manner. Which means that companies like us will be able to take up more volumes,” he said.

The volume of work offshored could also increase because companies who have not touched offshoring until now could become adopters of offshoring.

“Not everybody has touched offshoring, and this new wave is likely to happen,” Mr Bharathwaj said.

However, he said there may be some seasonal trends that may impact 24/7 Customer, but in the larger scheme of things, the impact will be minimal. “However, in the long-term it would be difficult to predict because of the uncertainty,” he added.

The company’s exposure to the financial services sector is not significant, and it has no engagements with either the investment banks, nor does it operate in the mortgage space, said Mr Bharathwaj. “The rest of the financial services are looking at better ways of creating efficiency. So we think we have a positive impact in the next few quarters for us,” he said.

Besides financial services, 24/7 Customer serves customers in verticals such as telecommunication, retail and travel. When asked if the company has seen any slowdown in the retail and travel verticals due to declining consumer spending, Mr Bharathwaj said that would depends on how much the volume fluctuations happen, and how much of their outsourcing is done by the company.

Mr Bharathwaj said the company is adding headcount as per plan. “We have not stopped our recruitment. We are recruiting across our centres in Guatemala, the Philippines and India,” he added.

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