Aviva Global integrates BPO employees under BOT model

Bangalore, Jan 12 (UNI) Marking a milestone in the Build-Operate- Transfer model in the Indian ITeS industry, Aviva Global Services, the world's fifth largest insurance group, has successfully integrated 1,600 employees from 24/7 Customer, a BPO providing integrated customer lifecycle management services.

Addressing newspersons here today, Aviva CEO Rajnish Virmani said the company had integrated the employees, along with infrastructure and equipment at its Bangalore operations from Aviva-24/7 Customer with effect from January one. The transition had been seamless and transparent to the UK business units, its employees and end-customers. The successful transition should be a trend-setter in the Indian IT and ITeS industry as several other players were keenly watching how the BOT model would work, he added.

He said Aviva was looking for a better entity to build a model centre in terms of service delivery and tap the talent pool in India and complimented 24/7 Customer for living up to its expectations and handing over the business model well within schedule.

Mr Virmani said Aviva-24/7 Customer facility in Bangalore was the first in the sequence of transfers and the remaining would be effected by January 2008, integrating Colombo and Pune in partnership with WNS and EXL. The remaining transfers would cover the Special Purpose Vehicle organisations, namely NCOP, WNS Colombo and Ntrance, created specially for the purpose of transfer by EXL and WNS respectively. With the integration of the remaining centres, the overall employees count would rise to 7,800, he added.

Speaking on the occasion, 24/7 Customer Founder and COO Nagarajan said the company had successfully demonstrated its capacity to build a business model and transfer it smoothly in a pioneering BOT concept.

He said that faced with dearth of employable candidates, 24/7 Customer had planned to tie-up with over 1,500 teachers in over 500 educational institutions to train students as per industry needs and successfully integrate them into the demanding BPO industry in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The company would prepare the necessary curriculum for the students, he added.

UNI