BPO players are expected to spend big on IT as technology infrastructure is the cornerstone on which the entire pillar of their business resides.

The Mumbai-based $13.7 million Epicenter Technologies is no exception to this rule as it intends to spend an excess of Rs10 crore on various IT and telecom infrastructure in 2004.

This was revealed by Epicenter CTO, Anwer Bagdadi, a veteran CIO in the Indian enterprise scenario.

Out of this overall pie of more than Rs10 crore, the planned budgetary outlay envisages investment in excess of Rs 4 crore on telecom, more than Rs 2 crore on the dialer and Rs 1.5 crore on workforce management.

Workforce management is the latest fad in this sector. It is that layer of management in a call center set-up that decides schedules and automates workflows.

Says Bagdadi, "Workforce management is crucial, since the current framework does not optimize revenue generation."

Some other key technology deployment during the year would be an upgradation of the MIS. The dialer technology would be primarily used for outbound calls. Even voice adaptation, wherever possible, and VoIP would be areas which would be looked at, Bagdadi said.

However, the seemingly lucrative Rs10 crore budget has a catch to it. In Epicenter, budgets are allocated on a quarter to quarter basis and failure to invest fully during one quarter means surrendering the fund, since it cannot be carried forward to the next quarter.

The key investments made last year were on WAN and implementing a front-end application for customer services for inbound sales requirements.

Page(s)   1