HTMT to open 1800 seater in B’lore

BANGALORE: The IT Services and BPO arm of Hinduja group, HTMT is opening an 1800-seat facility in Bangalore with an investment of Rs 50 to 60 crore. The first phase of 420 seats is completed and is expected to be occupied by 300 to 400 new recruits by March. Apart from this a couple of 100 employees from the existing center and the training facility at the STPI in the Electronics City are also to be relocated to the new facility, which is to be fully operational by March 2005.

"It is a three floor facility in the Hosur Road and the first floor is completed and ready for occupation. An investment of Rs 15 crore have been pumped in to this until now. The ramp up has been gradual and as per the business need," R Mohan, President and CEO of HTMT.

Presently the company has about 1700 people cramped in a 1100 seat facility in Bangalore servicing about seven clients. One of them, a Fortune 200 US healthcare insurance company, being a recent acquisition. This is the second health insurance client for HTMT from the US and involves both transaction processing as well as Client Contact Center work in the specialized area of health care BPO business.

Training and pilot project with about 80 transaction processors in 3 modules have commenced from the 12^th January 2004. The business has potential to grow similar to that of the existing client for whom 600 processors are already working and HTMT is in the process of setting up a high-end call center employing medical doctors.

Solomon Raj, Vice Chairman, HTMT, commented "Our existing domain expertise coupled with realization of high quality performance metrics in the health insurance sector was a major factor that made HTMT the preferred vendor of choice."

The company, which has 950-seat overseas center in Manila, Philippines, had mulled a disaster recovery center in Mauritius recently. However this plan seem to have been shelved. "The disaster recovery center at Mauritius was subject to the client’s requirement. Now since the client is quite satisfied with a center at Mumbai, the plan has been shelved. The need arose with the cross border tension, but now a domestic center is quite feasible," added Mohan.

CIOL Bureau