TransWorks to set up center in Bangalore

BANGALORE: Indian back-office services firm, TransWorks is setting up its second call center in the country at a cost of $ three million to meet demand in the booming sector. The 400-seat center, to be located in Bangalore, will be launched next month, Prakash Gurbaxani, the chief executive officer of the three-year-old firm, informed.

"We expect to employ about 600 people in the facility by mid-2003 in addition to the 650 staff we already have in Bombay. The big (software) companies are getting into this area and now our focus is to quickly get to a scale where we can compete with them," he said. The company, which has more than ten clients mainly from the financial services, telecommunications and travel sectors, already runs a 400-seat facility in Bombay.

TransWorks, in which ChrysCapital has invested about $10 million for an over 60 percent stake, offers customer management and back-office services such as financial claims processing and accounting through its offices in India and the United States. It is among a growing number of homegrown and multinational companies using India's cheap but skilled army of English-speaking graduates and engineers to handle global customer support via high-speed telecommunication networks. "There is clearly a lot more acceptance of India as a back-office hub, with increased interest from Fortune-500 companies," Gurbaxani said.

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