BANGALORE, INDIA: Sparsh BPO Services, the domestic BPO subsidiary of Intelenet Global Services Pvt Ltd (Intelenet) has inaugurated its new delivery centre in Puducherry as part of a strategic deal with Aircel, a leading mobile services operator in India, to provide customer support services for Aircel’s operations in Tamil Nadu and Chennai circles. The delivery centre in Puducherry will service Aircel’s base of prepaid and postpaid cellular subscribers in the Tamil Nadu circle.

Located at Kurumbapet in Puducherry, the facility is designed in the French colonial style with a capacity of more than 700 seats. With an initial headcount of 1600, the centre will be the largest BPO employer in the union territory. The centre is scalable to accommodate 2200 employees.

For Aircel’s customers in the Chennai circle, Sparsh provides services out of its Chennai centre employing over 500 employees. Both centres will provide customer service in English and Tamil languages.

Speaking at the inauguration of the Puducherry centre, Susir Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Intelenet Global Services said, “We are delighted to partner with Aircel, one of the frontrunners in the telecom industry in India. Puducherry is an emerging outsourcing destination for the IT-BPO sector, and we chose the union territory for its excellent infrastructure and competent talent pool.”

Speaking on the partnership with Sparsh, Gurdeep Singh, Chief Operating Officer, Aircel, said, “As we expand our business in south India, we needed a partner with core strengths in the domestic telecom industry, and Sparsh as the leading domestic BPO player was the obvious choice. The scalability and service quality offered by this partnership will help Aircel drive its agenda to becoming a full-fledged national operator by 2009.”

With its expertise in the telecom vertical developed by servicing leading public and private sector telecom service providers and scale of operations (18 delivery centres in 7 locations) and a decade of experience in the domestic BPO market, Sparsh will help support Aircel’s growth in the telecom sector. Sparsh’s presence in the southern market includes delivery centres located in Bangalore and Chennai. The southern market in India is a key area of focus in our strategy to grow our domestic business. This partnership will strengthen Sparsh’s presence in the southern region and be the key driver to exploring new areas for expansion in the region.

Sparsh currently has over 40 client relationships with leading multinationals across telecom, banking, insurance, consumer durables, retail, media, aviation & public sectors. Intelenet is the leading domestic BPO to provide services in 15 languages with centers in Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Mohali, Kolkata, Gurgaon and Delhi.