Spanco to set up BPOs in tier-III cities

Spanco Ltd, India’s biggest home grown BPO services provider, is looking at setting up call centres in tier-III cities such as Indore and Dehradun to get closer to the relevant workforce and contain employee costs. It is also setting up a call centre at Thane.

A company spokesperson confirmed that Spanco had filed an industrial entrepreneurship memorandum (IEM) to the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion seeking permission to set up a call centre in Thane, but did not give details as “the firm is awaiting the grant of permission from the DIPP”. 

“The business volume is increasing for which the firm needs manpower. However, the company does not want to increase its costs. Moving to tier-III cities ensures availability of English speaking graduates whose demands are not as high as those in the top few cities of the country,” the source said.

The company has recently been shortlisted as the lowest bidder for telecom infrastructure implementation and maintenance contract for public sector telecom company BSNL’s west zone. Spanco stands to win Rs 3750 crore contract from BSNL for this. Besides telecom-related contracts, Spanco is looking for a share of the Rs 6,000 crore IT contract from BSNL as it has bid for the PSU telco’s west and north zone tender.

Spanco, which focuses on government and telecom sectors, earned an operating margin of about 14% in Q4 (January-March) 2009. Spanco manages call centre work for telecom firms such as RCom, Vodafone and Citicorp among others. In 2007, Bharat BPO Services Ltd, a part of consortium led by Spanco (then Spanco Telesystems & Solutions Ltd), bagged the contract to manage Indian Railways call centre for 10 years. In 2008, the firm won a contract from Maharashtra government to prepare 180 million computerised ration cards. The company employs 5,000 people.