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Desperately
Seeking Buyers: Call Centres In Distress
The Financial Express,
May 07, 2003
The party is over for several call
centre start-ups that mushroomed all over the country in the last
couple of years. Call centres including Minerva, Renasonic, Flex,
Rico, Cybizcall, iEnergiser, eContactPerson, DSS Mobile
Communications and Paras CallTech are a few that are not in good
shape. Most are desperately searching for buyers and the irony is
that there aren’t too many takers.
While eFE has managed to confirm the
status of those named above, according to QAI (formerly known as
Quality Assurance Institute), there are close to 150 to 200 call
centres — of a total of around 300 — in the country that are
finding it hard to survive.
Minerva Telelink Limited was
established in 1999 and according to the last official information
available, it was operating 350 seats with 400 people.
When contacted by eFE, an employee
informed that the company had shut down its call centre operations.
According to sources, the company’s management is trying to sell
its infrastructure.
Another call centre with close to 250
seats and 200 people, Flex Contact Centers (a division of FCL
Technologies & Products Ltd) is yet another centre that has
temporarily shut down its operations.
“The centre has been temporarily
shut down and we are aggressively looking for buyers to sell out our
facility. We are also trying to engage in discussions with US-based
companies,” Flex vice president (corporate affairs) Atul Mehrotra
told eFE.
QAI’s IT-enabled services (ITES)
head Umesh Vyas adds, “Unfortunately, there is nobody interested
in buying mere infrastructure as the interest is in buying out
customers and new business.”
iEnergiser, a Noida-based call centre,
is also exploring possibilities for a consolidation. “We have had
some discussions with US-based companies that are looking at both
captive and third-party centres,” iEnergiser vice president
(finance) Adarsh Agarwal said.
Renasonic e-Solutions Ltd CEO was not
reachable for comments. Its centre numbers have been temporarily
disconnected.
Renasonic had employed over 300
people for its 120 seats, according to National Association of
Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) directory on ITES
companies.
“Unlike the business process
outsourcing (BPO) companies that can manage with a small team of
even 25 people, call centres need large teams and enough cash for
marketing. Small call centres (below 300 seats) with weak monetary
support are in trouble,” a Nasscom official said.
Size and lack of monetary support was
indeed the reason for eContactPerson (50 seats) to temporarily shut
down its operations, according to its chief operating officer
Shailesh Kumar.
DSS Mobile Comm-unications, which
ventured out into the call centre business after losing out in the
paging business, has also slammed the brakes on its international
call centre. “We are not doing well in the international call
center business and are working out revival strategies,” DSS
Mobile Communications Ltd managing director Pravin Kumar said.
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