WNS Holdings set to bag Aviva's BPO operations       
June 02 ,2008
Source: TNN

BANGALORE/MUMBAI: WNS Holdings appears to have emerged as the highest bidder for insurance giant Aviva’s BPO operations — Aviva Global Services (AGS) — with an offer of over $200 million. The deal covers acquisition of Aviva’s captive unit, outsourced operations parked with vendors and an assured business from the UK-based insurance firm for a five-year period, sources said. 

Private equity giant Warburg Pincus-controlled WNS is believed to have pipped rival outsourcing firm, EXL Services, and a multinational player — rumoured to be Capgemini — in a rather prolonged bidding process that marks the successful sale of a large captive BPO unit in the country. 

When completed, WNS is set to absorb around 6,500 employees of Aviva’s consolidated operations spread across Bangalore, Pune, Noida, Chennai and Colombo. 

Among recent deals, this is complex, not only because of the complications associated with a captive unit, but also because it involves the consolidation of multiple legal entities. 

A WNS spokesperson said the company does not comment on market speculation. Incidentally, WNS along with 24/7 Customer and EXL, is a third party vendor for part of Aviva’s outsourced functions. 

Aviva Global Services said, “We can confirm that as part of our ongoing strategic business review, we came up with a number of viable options to the captive model which we are exploring with a few companies. Reviews such as these are complex, time-consuming, commercially-sensitive and highly confidential, and we cannot comment any further. Aviva remains committed to the success of its offshoring operations and is proud of what has been achieved so far.” 

NYSE-listed WNS has been aggressively chasing consolidation in the country’s decade-old BPO sector. Last week, ET first reported that WNS has held early M&A discussions with Firstsource Solutions. Sources said WNS was likely to execute a leveraged buyout of Aviva BPO with the backing of $180-200 million facility from ICICI Bank. 

Aviva kicked off its outsourcing operations through a build-operate-transfer (BOT) model with three vendors and a definite plan to absorb them as own businesses over time. Out of around 6,500 employees with Aviva Global Services, about 1,900 are with the owned facilities and the rest split between 24/7 Customer, EXL and WNS. 

In 2007, Aviva had taken over 1,600 employees who were with 24x7 under a BOT contract and 300 people with WNS in Colombo under a similar arrangement, but delayed the transfer of the other contracts after it decided to sell its offshore arm, AGS. 

WNS could now take over all the outstanding BOT contracts and people working on them, as well as the 1,900 employees who have already moved to AGS. This means close to 5,000 people will be transferred to WNS, while another 700 on a longer BOT contract with 24x7 could be transferred later. 

The more immediate transfer will include 1,500 people that WNS itself currently employs in Pune and around the same number employed with EXL in Pune. It could also include another 1,000 with EXL in Noida but who are not under a BOT contract. 

The sale process has seen many twists and turns with bids initially being limited to its three suppliers — WNS, EXL and 24x7. Later, it opened up the bids to other participants as well and Deutsche Bank was appointed to manage the process. Sources said that the deadline set for the deal is June 15 while adding that none of biggies like Wipro or Infosys were active in the bidding process. 

 Diana's speech coach working on Indian call centre employees    
June 02, 2008
 SOURCE: PTI

LONDON: A speech consultant who worked on Princess Diana's speaking skills says that misunderstandings caused when British consumers speak to call centre operators in India can be resolved by minor changes and training. 

Bristol-based Andy Barrett, who coached Princess Diana on her speaking skills, believes that India's large pool of English-speaking people can further exploit their global potential by making some changes in their speech and diction. 

British customers have often complained to banks, insurance companies, British Rail, BT and other companies who maintain call centres in India that conversation is often difficult due to differences of accent and articulation. 

Barrett, who has coached several Indian call centre employees through his company Bart Cale Training, told PTI that the most common flaws he worked on were individuals speaking too quickly and poor articulation. 

"What tends to go wrong, with students from India, is forming English consonants where the tongue tip needs to touch the biting face of the top teeth," he said. 

"Another common flaw is using 'vuh' sound in place of 'wuh'. I test all the consonants and have tutorials to rectify each of them". 

Apart from call centres employees, several other Indian professionals have also undergone training programmes of Barrett to smoothen their articulation and diction through 'Skype,' an Internet based telephoning software.