Sunitha Natti

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad-based HyperSoft Technologies, a software product and services provider, is toying with the idea of giving the present virtual call center setup an entire new look, thereby originating the concept of a home-based call center. A first of its kind concept, it enables agents to work from their home provided they have a computer supported by bandwidth.

"Hitherto, to set up a call center even for a small-sized tele-marketing set up needs enormous investments that go into infrastructure besides other things. Also the traditional leased line mechanism is a tedious process to go by. Now, one can adopt VoIP technology and with very little investments one can start off a call center," said HyperSoft executive director, Dadi Bhote.

The company has tied up with US-based Five9.com that provides Session Initiated Protocol (SIP)-based VoIP solution on an ASP model. "All one needs to do is to install VoIP gateway (also provided by Five9) to the existing infrastructure. Agents would be assigned a login ID and password and they can work in the early morning hours or late nights for three to four hours or more," explained Bhote.

According to him, this concept also saves time and costs in terms of expenses incurred on employees in the form of transportation, food, etc. Above all there is no need to work in night shifts, which is a cause for high attrition rate.

Bhote claims that the home-based concept could prove to be an effective solution, as the agents need not worry about going somewhere and working night shifts. "They can bring down the number of working hours and as one performs they'll be paid accordingly," he added.

"Presently we are testing this concept, all it needs is good bandwidth that would soon be reaching homes with the proposed broadband connectivity. Once its there, the access would be easier and the project can take off in the next six months," Bhote explained.

HyperSoft Technologies kicked off its call center operations in January this year with around 15 agents and now is planning to increase this by 50 by the end of December 2004. And later, the company wants to spread the home-based call center concept across the country and add the number of agents figure to 500 by the end of December 2005.

The company has posted a turnover of Rs 1.5 crore and is expecting to increase this by Rs 3 crore for the financial year 2004-05. It also has set targets of recording a turnover of Rs 10 crore in the next three-year time frame.

According to Bhote, the company is also making inroads into foreign markets with its flagship product HyperStock for the stockbrokers. The product has a large presence in the domestic markets and is under the developing stages (customizing for the US markets) and would be launched in the middle of 2006 in the US.

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