'We have decided to go for the reverse hosting business model'

Why
did Portal decide to come to India at this time? Is it because of the glut in
the UK market?

As the global business process outsourcing (BPO) market flourishes and the
demand for call and contact centers continues to grow, competition for human
resource within this sector is increasingly becoming an issue. The management at
Portal decided to look at India as an ITeS outsourcing destination, as it
offered them the dual opportunity of leveraging the potential for ITeS and
enabled them to tap into the large pool of skilled and highly trained manpower
available in India.

What do you mean by reverse hosting?

You see, one of the immediate problems created by the large number of call
center companies, which have set up operations in India, is the high rate of
under utilization that exists at these units across the country. An added
problem is that due to large investments required in creating contact center
facilities, most companies do not have the resources to invest in the more
critical aspects of training and HR, which are integral to the success of their
business.

Given the problems of under utilization and lack of quality of HR processes
prevalent across the Indian call center industry, Portal Net Services (PNS) has
chosen to deploy the ‘reverse hosting’ business model in India. By reversing
the hosting site, instead of setting up our own contact center, we will
outsource existing capacity from call centers in the country and utilize it to
provide global English language response services to our customers.

Three centers will be coming up at Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

You have already allied with three contact centers in India. Are you
looking at more alliances? What kind of alliances are these?

We are moving as per our targets for the Indian market. Two of the three
alliances we have been pursuing are already operational, while the third deal
will be closed by the end of September. As part of these alliances, we have
outsourced 400 seats from the Mumbai-based ICICI funded Infowavz, and 300 seats
from the Delhi-based Ansal jointly promoted GeoConnect. We intend to invest $2.5
million in each of these centers.

We are also in the process of partnering with a leading global staffing/HR
company, which will then in conjunction with PNS, launch its services in India.
PNS’ partnership with this company will help us in improving the quality of HR
processes in the country and introduce globally accepted recruitment, training
and accreditation processes in the country.

Are you just leasing their infrastructure or entering into some kind of
revenue-sharing arrangement with them?

To begin with, we are in the process of running various pilot projects for
our international clients. This will validate the quality and service delivery,
which are the key drivers in any such endeavor. Going forward, we are in the
process of developing a revenue sharing collaborative model, which will be based
on an activity-based costing model.

Will you make new customers here or will you be shifting operations of
some your existing customers from UK to India?

We have identified and are also in active stages of negotiation with a
number of potential clients to do business with them in India. Also, as and when
our existing clients are ready to explore opportunities in India, we will be
ready and able to assist them.

Ravi Shekhar Pandey