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The Marketing Company

Way back in 1999, when offshoring was the big wave, Andromedanamed after the enigmatic spiral galaxy thats approximately some 2.5 mn light years awayswam against the waters to kick-start its domestic call center business, a spin-off from its nine-year old DSA business. It has not looked back since then.

It is only one of the three pure play domestic businesses in our Top 10. While others swear by inbound customer care while doing telemarketing for existing clients, Andromeda provides both inbound and outbound services, the latter being its real forte. Not surprisingly, while most others depend largely on the telecom services industry for their majority of revenue, BFSI is an equally strong business for Andromeda.

The company has also quite a few banks, insurance firms, and mutual fund companies as its clients. Apart from cold calling and follow-up based on SMS/Internet queries, Andromeda also does collection follow-up some of its telecom clients. The companys client concentration is also good, considering that the top client contributes only 18% of its total revenue.

According to DQ estimates, the companys revenue likely to go up to around Rs 80 crore this year.

While Andromedas ability to run marketing campaigns and execute customer service fairly well has got it its clients so far, the companys unstructured organizational set-up (it does not have a business development team, claims the director) may be a challenge going forward. However, it is a good acquisition target with large operations, especially with expertise in telesales.

Beyond ICICI

After listing in India (while most offshore BPO firms chose the US for their IPO), Firstsource shows yet another belief in India by seriously positioning as a domestic player, even while being a large international (offshore) player. Starting virtually in 2006-07, the company has risen to enter the Top 10 club.

Of course its lineage is a big, big help, and, not surprisingly, its biggest client is ICICI Bank and it has business from the groups other ventures such as ICICI Prudential. But Firstsource has also added major clients, Vodafone being the most notable. This is expected to change its revenue distribution significantlyBFSI is likely to come down to two-third in the current financial year from a whopping 95% in 2006-07. Also, the company that grew around 130% in 2006-07 is expected to close the year 2007-08 with a growth of 215% to cross Rs 100 crore.

As seen from its manpower growth in the first nine months of the year, this was not a year of adding to the headcount but consolidating on its rapid increase in headcount last year. That the company is looking at the domestic margin challenges head on is evident from its spread of operations in cities like Trichy, Hubli, Vijayawada, and Indore.

So far, the company is playing banking on a few big clients. It has to diversify a bit to be counted as a serious domestic player. For the time being the big question is, if and when ICICI Bank, which has probably Indias largest captive call center, decides to outsource, will Firstsource be at least first among equals to bag the prized possession?

Dare to be Different

Omnias #10 position in the list this year is a little misleading. With an expected growth of 274% in 2007-08, it would be the biggest among Indias pure play domestic services players in the coming year. While the differentials of many in the list are to do with the subtle positioning, Omnias USP is very, very tangible. It is the only company in the list that draws most of its revenue from a segment that does not even feature in the vertical list of most otherstravelOmnia has taken a head start there. Also, with two large public sector clientsMTNL and IndianOmnia has reference cases when this big opportunity opens up.

Owned by the BK Modi Group, Omnias other clients include Spice Telecom and Idea. With three major clients, it is no surprise that telecoms share in Omnias revenue next year would rise to 49% from a mere 9% in 2006-07. Led by industry veteran Pravin Kumar, who was instrumental in leading the creation of an organized domestic call center industry during his stint as the CEO of DSS Mobile Communications where he reinvented the company from a paging company, Omnias reluctance to take assignments that are not end-to-end, has hampered its growth in some way but has created better bottomline.

Another noteworthy initiative of Omnia is its JV with Spanco, Bharat BPO, which serves IRCTC for providing many of the latters services like Railway ticket booking and fair enquiry through voice call centers, in a revenue-share model. If successful, it could change the way call centers are looked at.

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