Assorted articles and Information

HDFC Bank is moving its BPO activity to the semi-urban areas by hiring about 2,000 people in next two months. The move is expected to bring down the operation costs by about 50 per cent to 60 per cent due to cheaper human resources and real estate. The bank will soon open 400-seater BPO in Tirupati, its second after Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, sources close to the development said. The Mumbai-based bank is expected to have 2,000 people working (at these two BPOs) by June, sources said.

Going forward, the capacity would be ramped up along with widening of the scope of operations, sources said. This is the first such attempt by any major bank in the country, sources said adding, to start with these BPOs will do only data entry work of the bank, and hopefully of other bank’s or financial intuitions and insurance companies eventually.

The Nellore centre opened early this year, manned by 140 people all hired locally, is currently operational. The banks are estimated to save about 50 per cent due to lower human resource and real estate. Talking about the social benefits, sources said, the idea is to create job opportunities locally and help the local youth earn their living without the need to relocate to metros.

HTMT Global Solutions have just been awarded one of the most coveted awards in the BPO world. The prestigious ICT INNOVATION AWARD 2008 is given to companies for outstanding work in process innovation and demonstration of creative capabilities. HTMT overcame stiff competition to win this award.

The award won by HTMT was for the design of a risky driving behavior analysis and scoring process aimed at preventing vehicles crashes or injuries in fleets before they happen. A group of HTMT associates analyse audio and video clips of US and Europe based risky driving behaviors. This analysis detail allows the customer, DriveCam, to provide daily, consistent, and accurate information about risky driving incidents to their clients which reduces overall incidents on the roads.

Commenting on the award, Partha De Sarkar, CEO of HTMT Global Solutions Ltd, said, “This project was particularly challenging given the degree of technicality of the solution required. To design and deliver this level of solution, required strong collaboration between the customer, our delivery team and our client servicing organization. Winning this award typifies the fact that HTMT has moved up the value chain and is recognized as a path breaking, innovative, conceptual solutions provider”.

Joe Harrington, VP, Operations for DriveCam added, “HTMT has proven to be a resourceful and able business partner. They quickly incorporated a very specialized and demanding business practice, hitting the ground running. This process demands both a highly skilled personal and flexible scheduling to attain an accurate and timely output. HTMT has met and exceeded our expectations.”

Citigroup Global Services (CGSL) has put the sale of its BPO operations on hold. CGSL is the India outsourcing operation of Citigroup which also has similar interests in China, Philippines, Latin America and Europe. The group which had started the sale process sometime back was close to finalizing the deal with Genpact in late 2007, but differences over the terms of the contracts and the price the deal could not go through. It now wants to relook at all the operations and has put the sale of the Indian operations on hold.

Citigroup was reported last year that Genpact had emerged as the buyer for Citi’s BPO business, Citigroup Global Services. Accordingly Citigroup and Genpact were close to coming to an agreement. But differences over the term of contracts and the price could not be resolved and the market crash has ensured a major fall in valuations of most major BPO firms. At $700 million, the deal suddenly looked expensive for Genpact. CGSL handles multiple operations for Citigroup entities globally, including retail banking operations like credit cards, mortgages, personal loans and the like. It has operations in Mumbai, Chennai and Gurgaon, too. It has some 11,000-12,000 employees, of which half service the international operations of the group. It caters to operations in more than 40 countries. Citigroup is present in over 100 countries internationally.

Citigroup has a separate knowledge in outsourcing processing activities for corporate and investment banking clients. It also has a technology outsourcing, Citi Technology Services. Citigroup had recently said it was writing down $22.2 billion. It posted a $9.83 billion loss for the fourth quarter as against a profit of $5.1 billion in the previous year. For the full year, Citigroup net income dropped to $3.62 billion as against a profit of $21.53 billion in 2006. With the fall in profits, the group is likely to take a hard look at its expenses and would be looking at going in for an aggressive job cut. Currently, it has already announced 4,200 job cuts. The move is likely to help low-cost operations of the group like India and Latin America.

Vikram Pandit is the new CEO of Citigroup and he is in the midst of undertaking wide-ranging changes at the firm to cut losses it had suffered due to subprime crisis. It might include some job cuts or change over workforce. Besides the Indian outsourcing business, Citigroup also has outsourcing operations in overseas and has to relook at all these operations globally and looking to these operations it has put the sale process on hold.