The Hindu Business Line : Hello… it’s your call

Talk of good news coming down the line! In a move that will, doubtless, cheer the $11-billion ITES industry, the Government has allowed KPOs, call centres, telemarketing companies, vehicle tracking centres and billing service centres — collectively known as ‘Other Service Providers’ — to have customer-service agents working from home on voice processes.

The move not only opens up avenues for housewives, the physically-challenged, and retired professionals to join the 7 lakh-strong BPO workforce but also provides the industry with a tool to reduce costs and combat attrition woes.

A cross-section of companies eWorld spoke to say the decision will prove to be a boon for the industry.

“This is a great step forward. The decision will hugely benefit the industry in terms of saving on travel time and infrastructure-related costs which will, in turn, reduce overhead costs per employee,” says Pramod Bhasin, President and CEO of Genpact. The company exuded confidence that it would be able to tap an ‘alternate talent pool’ in tier II and III cities, including home makers and differently-abled people willing to become a part of the industry. In addition, it would also aid in providing a better work-life balance for existing employees.

Agrees Ranjit Narasimhan, President and CEO of HCL BPO. “It is a very significant decision and will have a profound effect on operations. It will substantially increase the availability of workforce at lower cost, help fight attrition, and allow many more people to join the rolls,” he says.

Under the rules, the Department of Telecom has stipulated that the OSP operator would need to submit a security deposit of Rs 5 crore with an agreement to meet certain obligations such as exclusive use of home agents. It has further stated that the agents at home would be treated as Extended Agent Position of the call centre and interconnection would be permitted through Authorised Service Providers Provisioned (secured) Virtual Private Network (PPVPN) which have pre-defined location — that is home of the agents and OSP centre as VPN sites.

DoT has further stated that over and above the PPVPN, the OSPs can use their own security mechanism such as authentication, authorisation, and accounting — DoT would carry out surprise inspection of such locations.

“Although companies will have to invest in telecom equipment and security tools, they can look at significantly lower costs for infrastructure, facility, as also transportation,” points out Raju Bhatnagar, Vice-President of software association Nasscom.

Substantial savings seen

While the industry is still awaiting the fine print of the new regulations to assess the actual gains, a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates substantial savings ahead for companies. “Since this will not involve incremental investment on facility, office rental, power and transportation for such employees, the savings could be as high as $1,000 per person on an annualised basis for international call centre agents,” explains S.V. Ramana, President of the newly-formed Other Service Providers Association of India (OSPAI), which had been engaged in a dialogue with the Government over the last few months on the issue.

For now, the companies are busy studying the security requirements of work-from-home initiative for employees, and drawing-up strategies to make the most of the opportunity. Narasimhan of HCL BPO says his company is evaluating various technologies keeping in view the security concerns that clients may have. “Initially, the work-from-home initiative may be rolled out on a pilot basis and in a limited manner for mature processes, and for those agents who can work independently without supervision,” he says. Genpact, which has already started ‘work from home’ pilots with data access for employees in functional domains such as Finance, Legal and HR feels the latest announcement will allow the company to reach a level wherein 10 per cent of the employee base could work from home in the next 18-24 months.

“Some of our business deals with critical client data where clients have a host of security concerns, and access to information for employees is allowed in a tightly-controlled environment. We are now exploring all the technical possibilities to ensure complete data security while using the ‘work from home’ policy, following legal clearance,” says Interglobe Technologies’ CEO, Vipul Doshi.

Curb on attrition

Overall, the industry feels that the concept could prove to be effective in curtailing attrition. “Attrition levels could go down significantly, if the concept is implemented in its entirety. From the current over 30 per cent attrition in certain cases, it could drop to 10 per cent over the next two years, once the model matures,” says an industry observer.

The good news for the ITES sector does not end here! DoT has also done away with the restriction of 10 per cent outgoing PSTN lines in a Domestic Call Centre (DCC) and submission of associated Bank Guarantee of Rs 10 lakh. Put simply, this will enable companies that are focused on collections work and other tele-calling functions to procure outgoing lines in tune with their requirements (against the earlier 10 per cent cap on the outbound lines). This again would mean substantial cost savings for domestic ITES companies. In addition, the Bank Guarantee in cases of resource sharing between International OSP and Domestic OSP has been reduced from Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 50 lakh and from Rs 5 crore to Rs 1 crore. Moreover, the domestic OSPs are now allowed to connect to the dedicated servers provided at registered ‘hot sites’ albeit only at the time of disaster. Similar arrangements are permitted to international OSPs also.

Looking for more

While much of the industry’s wish-list has been met by the revised terms and conditions, companies are hoping to see the next round of liberalisation on some of the pending issues. A case in point is the current stipulation that work for home facility would be limited to the Secondary Switching Area (SSA) of the OSP centre and adjoining SSA — that is within 100-150 km from the facility.

“We would urge DoT to do away with this restriction, so as to allow home agents to get connected from any location in the country,” says Ramana of OSPAI. Companies feel that removal of the SSA restriction would offer aspiring agents in smaller cities an opportunity to work with companies that offer ‘work from home’ option.

“Besides this, DoT currently allows ‘work from home’ through VPN only. Our request to DoT is to permit the PSTN phone of the home agent to be connected to the OSP centre’s PBX, to enable better quality of voice. This is likely to result in immediate benefits since the PSTN penetration is much higher compared to broadband connectivity,” says Bhasin of Genpact.

moumita@thehindu.co.in

Related Stories:
DoT allows ‘home agents’ for call centres, telemarketers
KPO — the big BPO opportunity

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