NEWSROOM

Sundaram BPO to expand staff

The Hindu

Chennai, May 24
Special Correspondent
Eyeing overseas outsourcing market

• set to acquire new clients
• Looking at hiring qualified accountants, management graduates

CHENNAI: Sundaram Business Services (SBS), the BPO (business process outsourcing) arm of Sundaram Finance Ltd., is planning to up its headcount by 200 this year. The company currently has 450 employees on its roll at its 30,000 square feet facility here as well as subsidiary facilities in Mumbai and Delhi.

The move to recruit more people comes even as SBS is set to acquire a few new clients this year. ``Negotiations are at various stages with them,'' P.S. Raghavan, Executive Director, said. Further, the recruitment exercise should also be viewed in the context of SBS deepening its relationship with its existing clients. The company has 15 clients, including five overseas ones. SBS, said a release, was looking at hiring qualified accountants and management graduates.

SBS was set up in 2001 essentially as a captive BPO for Sundaram Finance. Since then, it had expanded to include external clients. According to Mr. Raghavan, roughly half the business of SBS came from outside clients. In two years, nearly 70 per cent of the business for SBS would come from external clients, he added.

SBS is engaged in providing non-voice support services. It offers high-end accounting services, credit processing, deposit processing, employee administration and insurance-related processing services. With a focus on BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) space, SBS, the release said, was now training its eyes on overseas BOP market. Its ongoing outsourcing engagement included a multi-year pact with Total Super, one of Australia's leading self-managed superannuation fund administration firms. ``Australia has a number of self-managed superannuation funds. Over the last two years, we have partnered with leading super-fund administrators in Australia and currently service over 1,000 funds - a number which we expect will double in the next 12 months,'' the release quoted Harsha Viji, Senior Vice-President, as saying.