The ‘Telstra' opportunity seems to be getting larger for offshore service providers.

More than 500 new positions could be potentially outsourced to India and the Philippines as part of a new call centre contract that is up for grabs, analysts say. And this is a fresh ‘request for proposal' from Australia's largest telecommunications company, Telstra.

Ms Karina Keisler, spokesperson for Telstra, neither gave details regarding how many jobs would be offshored nor did she comment on which Indian vendors have been shortlisted for this new project.

“Calls handled by unsuccessful participants in this competitive process will be gradually wound down before moving to another specialist call centre provider. We currently use a mix of international and Australian partners and this will remain the case after the conclusion of this tender,” Ms Keisler told Business Line in a written communication.

The message seems to be clear after Salmat, Telstra's existing back-office vendor, did not make it to the list of shortlisted vendors. Interestingly, Salmat does not have delivery presence in India or the Philippines — two of the most preferred geographies for outsourced call centre services. Salmat spokesperson Mr Josh Faulks has been quoted in the Australian media as saying that the failure to retain the contract was not tied to performance.

Salmat's delivery centres are located in Australia and New Zealand.

“We are sorry that this decision will have impact on our partners and their staff, but we understand that there may be opportunities for them to redeploy staff. Salmat remains a provider of other Telstra work,” Ms Keisler said.

Analysts said that Telstra's focus on offshoring back-office work could open the Australian market for Indian vendors.

“Telstra's competitors in the telecom space would also be compelled to leverage offshoring in a larger way, which clearly spells opportunity for Indian vendors especially at a time when global telcos such as BT and AT&T are going slow on tech spending,” said Mr Alok Shende, Principal Analyst of Ascentius Consulting.

The A$25-billion Telstra was in the news last week for evaluating proposals from back-office vendors to improve online customer service, simplify prices and cutting costs as a part of an ambitious corporate overhaul programme. The names of Infosys and Tech Mahindra were doing the rounds as potential candidates for this $80-million engagement.

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