The Hindu Business Line : A chance to scale up

When Pavneet Bajwa joined Scope International, the captive BPO of Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), in 2001, little did she imagine she would be working for the parent one day.

Pavneet moved out of Scope two-and-a-half years ago to join SCB in Singapore and later in London.

She is among the over 200 former employees of Scope who now work with SCB.

“Such talent moves have been taking place since 2003. Employees across all levels have had this opportunity. Currently our focus is on junior and middle-management levels,” says Sreeram Iyer, Chief Executive Officer, Scope International.

According to data shared by the company, about 66 per cent of talent moves in 2007 (up to April) have been at the junior management level and 23 per cent at the middle-management level. It was a similar scenario in 2006 and 2005.

So what makes Scope the talent hunting ground for SCB? “The ability to multi-task and lead teams on critical needs, besides experience, exposure and knowledge of the bank’s core product and processes,” says Iyer. Most employees chosen by SCB have worked on the bank’s processes covering over 50 countries.

Consistent performance

A track record of consistent performance makes an employee eligible for a move to SCB.

Take Bharathi Krishnamurthi’s case. At Scope, she was heading reporting teams responsible for service delivery in financial control and other areas such as regulations, statutes, liquidity management, balance sheet and performance management.

In August 2005, she moved to Singapore on a short-term assignment for SCB and has stayed on ever since in a permanent role. Today, she is a senior manager responsible for projects in finance systems.

She attributes her ‘comfortable’ career move to the fact that finance teams in Scope were seen as part of the larger finance teams at SCB.

“At Scope, I had a holistic view of reporting across various geographies and an end-to-end process awareness. Thus I could appreciate my role in the bank better — from the hub/spoke model perspective as well as from a process perspective,” she told eWorld in an e-mail.

Spice of variety

Besides such aligned career moves, Scope also offers other opportunities.

Sivakumari Jagadeesan joined Scope in 2001 and over the next five years handled a range of roles —consumer banking (debit cards and insurance products for India, Singapore custody and Jersey migrations), transition management (over 40 projects in consumer and wholesale banking across Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Jersey, US, and the UK) and heading the Projects & Information Management team that covered human resources (HR) service delivery, payroll and pension projects and human capital analytics and management.

Currently based in Dubai, she leads through yet another new role — consumer banking finance for West Asia, South Asia and Africa, which involves business performance management and decision support.

Sivakumari believes this diverse exposure has widened — and brightened — her job prospects.

“Right from the first year of my career at Scope, till date, I have been receiving offers every month — for all kinds of roles and from different banks.

I am confident that the skills I have picked up at Scope and SCB can be put to use in another bank,” she says.

That may not be the case for Shylesh Kumar who joined Scope in November 2001 as a Case Analyst for Hong Kong in the HR Shared Services Centre division.

His career progression then on may not have helped him land a job in any other bank, he told eWorld through e-mail.

“My work experience at Scope could have helped me move into a BPO company of similar nature, but not a bank,” he says.

From Case Analyst, he grew to be part of the Global Process team, HR data team and MIS (Management Information Systems) team.

In 2005, he moved to SCB in Hong Kong as HR Service Delivery Manager and a year later was promoted as Head of HR Service Delivery for North-East Asia.

archana@thehindu.co.in

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