Infosys shuts down BPO unit in Bangkok, shifts work to India, China
Infosys, India’s second largest IT services firm, has closed it BPO center acquired from Philips in Bangkok and transferred around 40 of it 175 employees at the hub to China. Infosys had purchased the BPO unit had been mainly dealing with back office jobs of Philips worldwide.
A business website reports that the CEO and MD of Infosys’ BPO division, Swami Swaminathan has confirmed the news saying that from the viewpoint of offering services, they were unable to upgrade the Bangkok center since most of the clients of the Indian tech firm were more comfortable to outsource their work to India or China. He further said that even when they had acquired the BPO center from Philips, they were aware of the fact that it was not scalable. Hence, they eventually decided to shift the business to India and China, he added.
It may be mentioned here that in July 2007, Infosys had acquired the back-office processes of Philips Global based in Chennai in India, Lodz in Poland and Bangkok in Thailand with the view that the company will get secure revenue of approximately $250 million over a period of seven years. Collectively, the three BPO centers had around 1,400 employees on their rolls.
The closing down of the BPO center in Bangkok is the first occasion ever since Infosys acquired the BPO operations of Philips Global that the tech firm has initiated a streamlining process. In fact, soon after the acquisition, Infosys began to transfer most of the outsourcing deals to the firm’s centers in Chennai and Pune in India with a view to provide services at inexpensive rates and with more effectiveness.
Stating that this was a part of the company’s strategic policy, Swaminathan revealed that following the acquisition, no one had expected Infosys to utilize these BPO centers to serve Philips. According to the Infosys BPO CEO and MD, the plan was to move work to any place where the facilities and means were available so that they were able to provide work at competitive prices and with more competence. At the same time, Swaminathan pointed out that Infosys does not intend to reduce any of its other global BPO centers. The Indian tech firm, which already has centers in China, Poland and Manila, has set up new centers in Mexico and Brazil in 2009.
In the meantime, Philips remains as one of the top clients of Infosys BPO and the outsourcing firm’s account with Philips has actually expanded considerably during the past few years. Even Philips considers Infosys BPO as one of its three major vendors worldwide.