Aegis, the BPO arm of the $39-billion Essar Group, will recruit 3,000 new employees for its India-focused business by the end of the current fiscal.
The hiring will address the increasing demand for back-office services in the domestic market. (Aegis follows the April-to-March accounting calendar)
Despite the nation’s macroeconomic challenges, Aegis continues to see demand for outsourcing from home-bred firms operating in sectors such as financial services, consumer durables and automobiles, according to Sandip Sen, Global CEO.
“We continue to be bullish on India as far as the BPO business is concerned. The numbers I am giving out are targets for fresh hiring given the demand pipeline and the deals that we have bagged already,” Sen told
“I am not talking about replacement hiring which is something that we keep doing on an ongoing basis.”
Backfilling of positions is a continuous process at the BPO company, thanks to an over 40 per cent attrition rate.
Around 22,000 employees work in the domestic unit of the company that has a 55,000-strong workforce. By March-end, Aegis may add a total of 5,000 new hands across the 13 countries in which it operates, Sen said.
Interestingly, some of Aegis’ peers, such as Firstsource Solutions and Hinduja Global Solutions, have been going slow on the India business largely because of wafer-thin margins. In July, Firstsource MD and CEO Rajesh Subramaniam said the returns from his company’s India unit do not justify the investments the company has had to make, both in terms of effort and management bandwidth. Similarly, Hinduja Global has been steadily reducing its exposure to India over the past few years.
Sen sees Aegis’s size as a major advantage. “One reason for us doing well in India is that we are one of the largest BPO players here. This gives us an automatic entry to any major outsourcing opportunity,” he pointed out. According to industry sources, the privately-held firm has global revenues of over $1 billion.
Aegis has had substantial success in winning outsourcing contracts from public sector banks, said Sen. These banks are new to the concept of outsourcing compared to the private sector ones. Recently, the company secured Bank of India’s (BoI) deal for both voice and non-voice contact services. At least 500 new jobs will be created for this account itself as Aegis will provide several services such as customer relationship management and collections for BoI’s customers.
Earlier, the company had won similar deals from Bank of Baroda and Union Bank of India.
adith.charlie@thehindu.co.in