Aegis Ltd, the business process outsourcing (BPO) arm of the diversified Essar Group, is looking to expand its presence across West Asia, Africa, Latin America and other regions.
The firm, which has grown to about 60,000 employees as of now from a mere 700 about five years ago, has charted out a blueprint to recast the entire concept of outsourcing business by taking high-end processes closer to client companies.
“I clearly see headroom for Aegis to become a $2-billion company in the next three years,” Aegis Managing Director and Global CEO Aparup Sengupta told
It is also looking at increasing ‘onshoring’ or ‘near-shoring’ (outsourcing to locales in the same country) rather than offshoring, which is outsourcing to cheaper locales such as India. Outsourcing to cheaper destinations like India had resulted in protests in developed nations such as the US over fears of job losses, and resorting to ‘onshoring’ or ‘near-shoring’ would help in increasing job opportunities in these countries. “We are Obama-proof,” says Sengupta.
Aegis employs people from 85 nations, of which more than 50 per cent are not Indians. The BPO firm has commercial presence in 19 countries, with operations in 13 regions across six continents and has 55 centres. The Essar group, a $27-billion conglomerate, is present across diverse sectors through firms such as Essar Steel, Essar Oil, Essar Power, Essar Shipping and Essar Communications.