Telus arm to set up captive in India despite slowdown

Likely To Hire A Few Hundred; Location Not Finalised

N Shivapriya & Rashmi Pratap
MUMBAI

UNDETERRED by the terror attacks on India, Telus International, the contact centre arm of Canada’s second-largest telco, Telus Mobility, is planning to set up captive operations in the country.
“The company has identified a few people for senior positions in India. It is likely to recruit a few hundred people to begin with. The exact location and city has not yet been finalised,” a source familiar with the development told ET. The Canadian operator is planning to set up back-office functions from the captive and may also look at IT functions at a later date, he added.
In an e-mail to ET, Telus’ senior communications manager, Shawn Hall, said: “Telus is looking at several countries around the world for new sites. While I can confirm India is among the countries Telus International is considering, we have no firm plans we can discuss at this time.” Telus International provides contact centre solutions, applications management, technology infrastructure management and BPO services to some of the world’s largest companies in IT, telecommunications, consumer electronics, financial services and energy and utilities.
Telus has over 7,000 employees in the Philippines. It plans to set up another office there at Cubao, Quezon City, by 2009. The majority of the workforce employed in the Philippines is used for North American call centre support.
Gaurav Dua, country head and principal of research firm, Everest Group, said despite all the noise about captives closing down and becoming unviable, new captives continued being set up. “In Q3, 21 captives were set up globally. In India, at least three firms have announced additional or new centres. Captives are used as a means to expand and do more work as opposed to work with third party firms, which is more limited,” he said. Decisions to set up captive units are being evaluated more carefully especially with third-party vendors now having scale and capability for many functions.
“Telus International has three contact centres in Manila that are reaching capacity. In response to customer demand we are looking at sites that afford us the opportunity to offer customers service in new languages, in particular Spanish, as many of our clients are USbased. We are also seeking geographical diversity — sites in different regions of the world to minimize the impact of any natural or man-made disaster on our operations,” according to a Telus spokesperson.