IBM Daksh, 24/7 Customer, Aegis contend for $500 million telecom outsourcing deal
Three major Indian business process outsourcing companies, including IBM Daksh, the BPO arm of Essar Group, Aegis and 24/7 Customer are contending for an outsourcing contract said to be to the tune of $500 million in Africa and West Asia.
According to a report in a financial website, the contract offered by a leading telecom firm in Africa and West Asia will include the company’s total BPO lifecycle, inclusive of dealing with its call centre, training, auditing, billing process as well as other activities. This telecom major has a user base of approximately 25 million and has presence in countries like South Africa, Kuwait, Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Incidentally, while a spokesman with IBM Daksh, the second largest BPO and ITeS firm in India, has declined to make any comment on this issue, an Aegis spokesman said that his company did not wish to make any statement on market hearsay.
Describing the deal as one of the biggest in the telecom sector in the recent time, industry experts are of the view that it is likely to be completed by August end. Although the telecom sector has been among the worst sufferers of the recent global economic slum, according to experts, many telecom firms have always been making major IT investments and this trend will continue in the ensuing periods.
The report quotes the principal analyst at Ascentius Consulting, Alok Shende as saying that if one takes a look at the telecom players in Africa and the Middle East, they will find that very few of them have actually outsourced their non-core jobs thus far. He further said that IT spends by several telecom firms will continue to increase in the ensuing years. Citing examples of some major global IT players, Shende says that the economic recession has not affected them much, particularly in the end user market section.
Meanwhile, the NASSCOM Strategic Review 2010 also stated that subsequent to the banking financial services and the insurance sector (BFSI), the telecom and the Hi-Tech sectors are the second biggest verticals for the Indian IT and ITeS firms, as they comprised approximately 22 per cent of the entire BPO exports during the 2009-2010 fiscal year ended on March 31, 2010.
The slackening growth of the IT and ITeS sector during 2009 notwithstanding, the entire value of deals signed with the telecom sector (media included) reached around $7 billion during the second half of the year. This denoted an augmentation of 23 per cent from $5.7 billion during the first half of the same year.