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HCL BPO, which some seven years back had taken a pioneering step to acquire an onshore call center (BTs Apollo Contact Center in Belfast) has not really given up on the strategy, even though others have caught up. It followed the Apollo acquisition with that of another firm, AnswerCall, in Northern Ireland, in 2005. FY 07 saw HCL BPO taking a big step in North America of completing a $40 mn acquisition of Capital Stream, a US-based firm engaged in providing outsourcing services to commercial banks engaged in lending. But the acquisition, coming at the fag end of the year in February, could not do much to HCL BPOs North American revenue, which actually fell 11% in rupee terms.

A 79% revenue contribution from Europe helped in a year when the dollar slid, but in the long-term it remains a concern, especially because another acquisition in July this year (that of UK-based Liberata Financial Services or LFS) with estimated annualized revenue flow of $60 mn will further take its dependence on Europe.

But on the whole, HCLs onshore journey has been fairly smooth. Many overseas acquisitions have seen tough integration phases but HCL has managed to consolidate the onshore operations fairly fast, even growing its Northern Ireland operations significantly by organic means.

What, however, remain concerns for HCL are its excessive dependence on its top customer, which accounts for 65% of its total revenue and its dependence on voice business, which still accounts for 78% of its business. The acquisition of LFS (it has close to 800 people spread in four delivery locations), though, will give it capabilities in life insurance and pensions procession, reducing its dependence on voice. The company expects that to come down to 70% of total revenue in the next 4-6 quarters.

RANK 10
	Ranjit Narasimhan, Head of India Operations
Sumit Bhattacharya, exec. VP Hariharan, Cfo Ap Rao, head, Hr Sk Pillai, head, Quality Sundaresan Ramamoorthy, head Compliance Vijay Reddy, Cto
HIGHLIGHTS
n Bagged two new clients in the US market: a leading provider of information management and large diversified manufacturer n  Bagged contracts in Europe including one from a UK-based property management company for providing account payable/receivable and from a leading professional publisher n  Acquired Capital Stream, a US-based service provider to commercial lenders
FACTSHEET
l Start-up Year: 2001 l Address: B-34/3, Sector 59, Noida-201307 l Employees: 13,931 l Tel: +91-1189-2589690 l Website: www.hclbpo.com

HCL BPO is also trying to develop analytic capabilities to offer both KPO services as a separate service line, as well as add value to its customer interaction business. For FY 09, the company will follow a mix of organic and inorganic growth strategies. An acquisition in the transaction processing area is on the cards. There would also be a strong focus on platform-led services in the coming quarters.

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