BPO

Things are moving from bad to worse! It’s time parents lose their pride that they made their kids an engineer. After all these engineers who paid heavy college donations and spent their teen life as a book worm end up in a BPO. And all that you need to join a BPO is good communication and basic computer skills; well not a degree!!

It was bound to happen but not so soon!! Hundreds of fresher’s who got their offer letter from Wipro were asked to join BPO with half the salary!! Sudip Shah who was designated as a project engineer was given a revised salary which was half the amount and asked to join its BPO division. “I was offered Rs 2.85 lakh/year as CTC. Now I have been asked to join as a BPO staff with 1.3 lakh/year. Why is this so? This is unfair!” said Sudip of an Engineering college in Kalyani.

Campus recruitments and great on spot offers have become a distant dream. These fresher’s were offered a job last year and were assured by Wipro of job placement by February 2009 once they pass out of college.

In the letter to the candidates on November 25th, Wipro had stated, “You would be aware of the current economic environment across all industries including the IT sector. IT analysts and experts claim this scenario is likely to prevail for a while. We have looked at various options to absorb you without much delay. The nature of job is that of a “technical helpdesk engineer” instead of “project engineer” as promised earlier.”

Students later protested in front of Wipro office in vain. With Wipro and other top software companies sacking Managing Directors to top Project managers without any reason, handling these freshers would have been easy job. But looks like these fresher’s haven’t understood what’s happening in the market now!! They protested, “We have told the HR that we will accept a reduced pay structure! But will not change our designation that was offered to us last year!”. Hey fresher’s, come to terms!! There are engineers out there with years of experience who struggle to get a software job! The industry is not so simple as you think!! Getting a job itself is a miracle!

The dissenters later mentioned to Wipro that they are ready to wait even for six months but not to withdraw the appointments if they did not join BPO. It should be noted that Wipro had clearly mentioned that it would place them in BPO only. If the engineers were not to accept the BPO position, they would not be considered for any other position.

BPO is not an industry where everyone can get a job. Today’s BPO requires excellent communication and technology skills to excel. BPO skill sets has become tough nowadays and even an engineering degree would not be considered if you do not have good communication skills

24/7 Customer on a phased ramp down

After software companies, its now BPO companies who are on a slow down. 24/7 Customer one of India’s leading BPO firms have informed that they would carry out a phased ramp down of their offshore call center partnerships in India.

24/7 has planned to reduce 450 employees in Gurgaon and would also assist the employees to find employment opportunities outside their company. More than 70% of its employees are already on a lookout for other opportunities.

But as all companies say, the company also claims that it will increase its workforce from the existing 7,500 to 10,000 employees by May and it is already hiring in India, Guatemala and Manila. These claims have become common with most of the companies to cover their real skin.

President of New services and Global Chief of Risk and Infrastructure stated that they have taken all necessary steps to help employees pursue careers in other centres.

Industry analysts feel that the current slow down in the market can no longer help companies afford having employees in bench. They do have to ramp down employees in the name of performance review and cover their real cause with news about increasing work force.

The BPO has its head office based in California with its Indian call center operations in Chennai, Bangalore, Gurgaon and Hyderabad.

Looks like all Indian companies are in a aqusition stratergy. India based tech company HCL has signed a $2 million deal to buy a U.K based back-office service firm, Liberata Financial Services.

Liberata Financial Services (LFS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberata Limited, provides services for pensioners and life. The company has an annual revenue of about $60 million. LFS multi-year contracts are worth $540 million.

Eyeing on the benefits and profit margin, HCL has made the move to acquire it at any cost. Chief Executive Officer for HCL Business Processing and Outsourcing, Ranjit Narasimhan stated, “This acquisition will equip HCL with a ready capability across the value chain by providing access to an existing revenue stream of policy management, actuarial and analytics,”

HCL Technoloigies has planned to invest $24 million in the next three years to increase its revenue. It should also be noted that HCL would aquire four delivery centers in UK which would be part of the deal. The employee strength would be 800, all four centers combined.

Ahead of deal, HCL Indian shares at BSE closed at 215.35 rupees