India still going strong on KPO and BPO

How was the business during the past year for Integreon,
particularly in the wake of global economic countdown in FY09?

I think 2008 was a bad year for everybody when the big meltdown happened.
And in Q1FY09, for most companies globally, it was more of a crisis management
mode. But, I think after they recovered by forming strategies, the outsourcing
demand has emerged stronger. Also, the size of contracts and deals is getting
bigger. We have grown really well last year and continue to see that growth this
year as well specially in the vertical enterprise level outsourcing business and
legal knowledge and research services demand.

How do you see the Indian outsourcing sector and
companies like Integreon maintaining an edge over other Asian countries due to
competitive cost factor?

Cost is an important part of client decision making but it cannot compete on
the cost model alone. And there are ways to address it. I think what clients
expects is the value delivered to them. You can charge a premium for your
services but if you are delivering high value to your clients they would pay for
it. We have a global presence. While, we have lot of operations in India, we
also have operations in countries like Philippines, recently acquired China,
South Africa, Uruguay and on-source centers in UK and US. So, we are actually
telling clients that we will use the best possible combinations of locations to
deliver the services to clientswe call it consolation. I dont think it
compromises any business coming to India because India still has lot of
advantages in terms of availability of talent, skill sets and more economic
price.

What kind of in-house training is provided at Integreon?

The training program can vary from two weeks to three months and then there
is an on-going training program for everybody. This includes training on
professional skill-sets as well as technical skill-sets such as IT and domain
specific. We have the Integreon Training University which runs about eighty-five
different curriculums related to technical knowledge and domain knowledge. So,
it is a compulsory participation by every manager and associate as part of their
learning process.

Pankaj Maru/CMN

maildqindia@cybrmedia.co.in