Wipro BPO has said it is witnessing activities from the emerging markets like continental Europe, Canada and Australia. The firm is also experiencing its banking financial services and insurance (BFSI) clients coming back.
Ashutosh Vaidya, head, Wipro BPO, said: “We are witnessing an increase in our activity in the BFSI sector. We are in discussions with clients in the healthcare, energy and BFSI sectors for various deals that could size between $50-100 million. However, we see increased activities in emerging markets like Brazil, India and China.”
Wipro BPO added almost 10% of Wipro’s total revenues of Rs 6,274 crore in the first quarter. According to Vaidya, the BPO business is expected to add similar growth levels in the coming quarters. “BPO is largely a transaction-based business. Earlier, clients were outsourcing 100 transactions out of 1,000. Now, they want to look at 300 transactions. There is increased activities also in areas of procurement, marketing, sales management and collections.”
The BPO unit is expected to have a gross addition of 8,000-10,000 people this year. However, according to Vaidya, demand for human resources in the BPO sector would not come back anytime soon. “The headcount reductions by the clients were much more than the actual need of the processes because they were looking at more efficiency from less people. So to go back to similar demand levels, the economy will have to go to higher levels of growth than what it was about a year back.” He added that generally clients invest 2-3% of their revenues into IT services. However, the BPO gets the larger junk of almost 7-10% of the revenues. “The portfolio of work coming to the BPOs is much larger than IT services, therefore the investment too is almost three times larger.”
Sigh of relief
• Wipro BPO?s banking, financial services and insurance clients are coming back
• It sees increased activities in emerging markets like Brazil, India and China
• Wipro BPO added almost 10% of Wipro’s total revenues of Rs 6,274 crore in the first quarter
• The BPO unit is expected to have a gross addition of 8,000-10,000 people this year
