Health Cared

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Healthcare segment in general, and its acquisition of MedAssist last year in
particular, helped Firstsource buck the recessionary blues. The complete
integration of this US-based healthcare revenue cycle management provider has
also been accomplished. With this booster shot, Firstsource would have grown
organically by a modest 10-11%. In fact, healthcare revenue grew by 89% and
accounted for 45% of the total business of Firstsource, making it the biggest
vertical for the company at the end of FY 09.

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In fact, except for healthcare, Firstsources business was severely under
pressure, especially from the BFSI vertical that accounts for around 26% of the
overall pie. While the topline still grew by 24%, thanks to volumes,
profitability dropped. Firstsource is also a player in the US credit collection
business, which accounts for nearly 10% of its revenues. Surprisingly, telecom
revenues took a hit, as the company saw a fall of around 3% in revenues. It was
better able to diversify revenues from customers as top five dependency fell
from 37% to 31%.

The geographic spread of revenues shifted towards the US, mainly due to the
exponential growth in healthcare, and North America now accounts for a whopping
71%. Revenues from Europe fell by about 8% and now accounts for the rest 29%.
This uneven distribution could turn out to be the Achilles heel for Firstsource.
However, it is doing fairly good in the domestic space, and has been adding
several accounts and centers at a fast pace. Meanwhile, the company has
continued with its reach out to the customer philosophy by adding another
delivery center in the UK, in addition to the ones like MedAssist in the US. It
also received local government assistance in northern Ireland to step up
presence there.


RANK
5


Firstsource

Ananda Mukerji, CEO
Carl Saldanha, CFO

Sanjiv Dalal, CTO

Aashu Calapha, head, HR

Chandeep Singh, head, quality

Matthew Vallance, president, BFSI, telecom & media, Europe

Michael Shea, president, healthcare, North America

Sanjeev Sinha, senior VP, BFSI

FACTSHEET
l Start-up Year: 2001 l Employees:
12,286 l Address: 6th Floor, Peninsula Chambers, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower
Parel, Mumbai 400013 l Tel: 02266660888 l Fax: 02266635481 l Website:
www.firstsource.com
HIGHLIGHTS
  • Carl Saldannah appointed as
    global CFO
  • Raju Venkatraman resigned as
    joint managing director and chief operating officer
  • Won large deals in the
    domestic market, from Airtel and Idea
  • In the UK, its subsidiary
    Pipal Research bagged a $30 mn KPO deal from British Telecom Global
    Services
  • Chennai center received COPC
    4.1 Standard Certification
  • Firstsource and Cheltenham &
    Gloucester won Outsourcing Excellence Award 2008 for most flexible
    partnership
  • Pipal Research signed an MoU
    with London Stock Exchange to provide research reports to Alternative
    Investment Market (AIM)
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The coming year continues to be challenging for Firstsource, mainly due to
its high exposure to the US and over 50% revenue exposure to BFSI and telecom.
There could also be some management changes in the offing, as there are reports
that ICICI and other investors are keen to sell their stakes in the company and
lots of private equity firms are vying for the same. DQ