Sundaram Business Services (SBS), the BPO arm of Sundaram Finance Ltd., has announced that it has formed a Joint Venture with ETA Group, the Dubai headquartered business conglomerate. The JV company has plans to hire accounting professionals as well as people with Arabic skills.

Christened Gulf Outsourcing Services Pvt. Ltd., the 40:60 (SBS: ETA) JV will target, among others, the BPO markets in UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, with focus on the BFSI vertical.

The JV company will open a full fledged office in Dubai shortly. The plan is to eventually set up a BPO facility at the Dubai Outsourcing Zone. This footprint will allow the new JV to provide their clients with a full suite of processing options including onshore and offshore capabilities.

Founded in 1973, ETA Group is a business conglomerate involved in the business of Construction, Manufacturing, Trading, Shipping, Retail, Leisure, Facilities Management, Automobiles, Insurance and IT. With business establishments predominantly in UAE and in India, ETA group has its associates all over the globe. ETA group employs over 40,000 people and has revenues of over US$3 billion.

SBS has built a solid BPO service offering in the BFSI space which has a strong grounding on ‘do what you know best’ philosophy. SBS was formed in 2001 and has over the last couple of years expanded its business outside the SF Group, both in India and overseas.

P.S Raghavan, Executive Director and Head-SBS said, "The ETA Group brings deep knowledge of the Gulf market and will give us the ability to offer clients on-site, on-shore as well as off-shore processing capabilities. We believe that the combined entity will help us make inroads into the huge untapped potential for outsourcing in the Middle East. Both our Groups have a long history of successful partnerships and joint ventures and we look forward to working closely with ETA to make this a successful BPO partnership in the Gulf. "

Arif Rehman, Director (Finance), ETA Group said, “While the Gulf is now positioning itself as a major outsourcing destination, we believe that companies in the Gulf can themselves benefit greatly from outsourcing. Many Gulf companies face serious constraints in hiring the right talent to sustain their rapid growth and maintain high quality service to their clients. With the backing of the Sundaram Group's deep expertise in financial services, their proven BPO track record, and their ability to hire the right talent, we are confident that our JV will deliver real value to clients in the Gulf.”

On the growth strategy of its BPO and IT arms, T.T. Srinivasaraghavan, Managing Director, Sundaram Finance said, “Our BPO and IT arms have to-date grown entirely organically and are beginning to see a lot of traction. With both SBS and SIS now well poised for aggressive overseas growth and with proven delivery capability and track record, we are now actively looking at supplementing these foundations with selective inorganic moves, that will add to our capabilities and domain expertise, in India as well as overseas.”

SBS is also aggressively targeting the overseas BPO market in the US, UK and the Asia Pacific in the Accounting, Payroll and Insurance verticals. In June this year, SBS had announced plans to target the $250m Finance and Accounting (F&A) outsourcing space in the Singapore BPO market. Sundaram BPO is also seeing a lot of traction in the domestic market, especially in the Insurance verticals.

Commenting specifically on SBS’ inorganic growth plans, Harsha Viji, Sr. Vice President, SBS said, "We are looking for alliances, strategic partnerships or acquisitions in overseas markets like UK, US and Asia-Pacific  in areas that will help complement our existing capabilities and  add value to our offering. In India, our preferred strategy is to work with BPOs who have a proven delivery track record and who fit our brand." 

Headcount Expansion

On the headcount front, Sundaram BPO is in the process of hiring over 200 people, including qualified accountants and management graduates this year to take its headcount to over 650.

Infrastructure Expansion

On the infrastructure front, Sundaram BPO has a 30000 sq. ft BPO facility in the heart of Chennai as well as subsidiary facilities in Mumbai and Delhi.

Offerings

SBS focuses on ‘Non-Voice’ support services. SBS service offerings include high end accounting services, credit processing, deposit processing, employee administration and insurance related processing services.

SBS’s Client base

SBS’ ongoing offshore outsourcing engagement includes a multi year outsourcing agreement with Total Super, one of Australia’s leading self managed superannuation fund (SFMF) administration firms, and a leading well established accounting firm in the UK. SBS has over 10 customers in the domestic BPO market

Sourced From: Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide