Anyone who has met Aparup in his/her career is likely to remember the man for a long time. The managing director and global CEO of Aegis is a specialist at man management, and takes pride in informing people that no one leaves his firm. ?Can anyone leave home,? he asks, with a straight face.

Aparup is some sort of a star in the BPO industry. During his 20 year long career, Sengupta has managed complex IT projects at CMC for more than eight years, set up India?s first internet working channel for Microland in Bangalore, India, and orchestrated several re-engineering projects in India and abroad.

He has been a member and the Lead Assessor of the Jury of the CII Business Excellence Award, and has also served as the chairman of the BPO Steering Committee of Assocham, India?s leading industry forum. He has also been an ambassadorial scholar to the US in 1994. ?I believe in the power of people and what they can do,? he says, not wanting to blow his trumpet too much.

Aparup, a graduate in electrical engineering from the University of Calcutta, wanted to be a Bollywood star when he was young. ?I was into dramatics and I thought I could make it as a movie man in Mumbai. But those plans fizzled out as I moved along.?

People around him always knew he would make it big?if not in movies, but in the corporate world. He had that risk taking ability and the precious skill of taking people along. No wonder he has been an entrepreneur with three successful start-ups: 24/7 Customer, India?s first CRM services company; Ion Idea, an IT services company based out of Fairfax, Virginia; and Think Harbor, a leading BPO consulting company funded by BankAm and Nomura.

When Aparup took charge of Aegis in 2004, it was a $52 million company which was suffering a loss of $22 million. Today it is close to joining the billion dollar club. ?It?s been a journey from bankruptcy to billion,? says Aparup. ?We decided that we needed to play the global game, while others stuck to their cost arbitrage methods. We positioned ourselves as the custodians of customer experience and stressed on the importance of an organised Indian consumer experience.?

The other aspect Aegis emphasised on was the dual cylinder engine policy ? combining organic and inorganic growth. ?We created a layered M&A team, and added to it integration and operations teams as well. The strategy was to build and buy.?

?Our focus has been on enterprise value creation. We started with just BPO services but are now value-adding by partnering with companies to better their revenues and productivity. All the acquisitions that we made, or will in the future, are/will be governed by the strategies that I spoke to you about. The initial impetus came from customer life cycle management, BPO, engineering services and this has been our way of entering into various geographies.?

It has worked, as can be seen from Aegis? balance sheet in the last few years. Today it is India?s second largest BPO, with 50,000 people on its payrolls with operations spread across 12 countries. Aegis has done 18 acquisitions over the last six years, with Actionline in Argentina being the latest one. Aegis has effectively integrated all the companies it has acquired and the proof of this is the under 2% senior management attrition of the companies it has acquired. ?We work on the needs of the people. I don?t want anyone to leave Aegis.?

In February, Aegis announced a $2 billion outsourcing deal from Saudi Telecom, which is one of the world?s largest sourcing deals. BPO leader Genpact has reasons to worry. And it affords Aparup, a good reason to smile.