Aviva increases offshoring in India, Lanka

NEW DELHI: Aviva has announced its plans to extend its offshoring capability by creating around 760 jobs in India and around 190 jobs in Sri Lanka in 2005, to service its Norwich Union businesses in the UK. According to the press release, this builds on the 3,700 jobs Aviva has already established in India and will bring the total number of staff in India to around 4,460 by the end of 2005.

The release further states that Aviva expects to conclude its offshoring plans by the end of 2007 and anticipates that it will have up to 7,000 roles offshore by then, servicing its existing UK businesses. The company expects no more than 150 compulsory redundancies in 2005 as a result of offshoring, as the company's previous experience has shown that most job reductions can be achieved through normal staff turnover, redeployment and retraining.

Out of the total of 950, around 760 of the roles will be based in India and will service the life and pensions and general insurance businesses in mainly back office administration roles. The company expects the remaining 190 roles will be predominantly finance support roles based in Sri Lanka.

COO of Aviva Offshore Operations Seán Egan said, "The experience of our existing offshore operations shows that the service levels in India continue to match those that we achieve in our UK operations. Expanding our offshore operations will give us the increased capacity we need. We expect to conclude our offshoring plans by the end of 2007 by which time we anticipate that we will have up to 7,000 roles offshore servicing our existing UK businesses".