Aditya Birla Minacs, the BPO arm of Aditya Birla Nuvo and part of the $30-billion Aditya Birla Group, has embarked upon a unique initiative to expand its footprint and reach out to newer markets. The company has hired French and Spanish speaking agents to offer a better customer experience to its clients in India and Manila.
?We are getting expats to settle here and are offering them all necessary helps to relocate to India. Currently, there are 150 such employees with us,? Milind Godbole, president-APAC, Aditya Birla Minacs, said.
Godbole said he has been trying to hire people from places like Puducherry, an erstwhile French colony, or even Portuguese-speaking people from Goa. However, the number is very few and most of them are old and some of them are even housewives. It is easier getting people from overseas, he said.
The company plans to get more such people with foreign language capabilities on its roll if this experiment becomes successful. ?Several agents are either based out of Bangalore or Manila and end up serving customers with these language requirements. We are also looking at Eastern Europe and are keen to get people from these countries to serve other markets,? he said.
Aditya Birla Minacs will be adding 200 people to its Manila operations in addition to its current strength of 500 people and 100 staff to its Jamaica operations. The company caters to telecom, finance and insurance segments.
?The nature of the BPO business is changing worldwide. In the last two to three years, growth has been happening in The Philippines, Caribbean and South America. These countries are serving more US customers,? he said. ?Customers are getting more demanding and are wanting services in the languages they are familiar with like French, Spanish, Korean, Japanese and Chinese,? he explained.