TeleTech; offering services to domestic mkt

NEW DELHI: TeleTech Services India Pvt Ltd, a 50:50 joint venture between Bharti Teletech Ltd and TeleTech Holdings Inc., is the first MNC to offer its services in the domestic call center market.

This is primarily to cater to the customer care and support requirement of the Bharti Group. Currently, Bharti has 12 customer care centers with a total of 1,000 employees. The company owns some of these centers, while some have been outsourced. These businesses would now be transferred to TeleTech, which would be consolidated into two - three centers across the country.

The employees are also expected to be absorbed into the new company. Justifying the rationale in serving the domestic market, Sanjay Kapoor, President and CEO of the company said, "It is only in India that we can leverage on the time zone factor. Therefore, we can utilize resources better by serving domestic customers during the day time."

Unfortunately, there are regulation issues, which stipulate that there has to be separate technological infrastructure for the two sets of operations. The government's concerns stem from the fact that illegal international traffic may flow into the domestic telecom network. "But why penalize the entire sector because of a few dishonest people around?" asked Kapoor. The government should do away with regulations that hinder the growth of the industry and better capacity utilization.

Domestic business would comprise a small portion of the company's total business. TeleTech Holdings is a BPO service provider with 53 customer management service centers across the globe. Although, TeleTech Holdings would pitch for business, TeleTech Services India would also have its own business development team in the global market.

"We have an edge since we understand the CRM business as against other BPO companies. Besides being a telecom service provider, we understand the telecom business and 60 percent of our work comprise serving telecom clients," added Kapoor.