Tech Mahindra to begin Bharti’s African outsourcing services
India’s Tech Mahindra Ltd. expects to start offering call center services to Bharti Airtel Ltd.’s operations in six African countries from Feb. 1.
Earlier this year, Bharti Airtel had selected Tech Mahindra–along with International Business Machines Corp. and Spanco Ltd.–to provide business process outsourcing (BPO), services to the carrier’s operations in 16 African countries.
According to Sujit Bakshi, President, Corporate Affairs and BPO, under the five-year deal, Tech Mahindra will offer core customer service functions such as call centers and back offices in Zambia, Gabon, Ghana, Malawi, Congo DRC, Congo B. The deal didn’t involve making any upfront payment to account for cost savings that may accrue to Bharti.
Tech Mahindra’s BPO division accounted for 5.8% of the company’s US$990.06 million total revenue in the last fiscal year ended March 31. The segment employed 8,489 people at the end of the September quarter.
Bharti entered the African market through a $9 billion acquisition of Kuwait-based Mobile Telecommunications Co.’s assets in the continent in a bid to expand its business to offset the effects of stiff competition in India. The company has about 45 million subscribers in Africa, where the average telecom penetration is lower than India, and aims to achieve 100 million subscribers by 2012.
According to Bakshi, as part of the deal, Tech Mahindra will take over about 2,000 employees on the rolls of Zain and on contract and hire more staff locally to offer services in the six countries. Zain has about 4,500 employees in the 16 African countries, including sales personnel. Tech Mahindra is also targeting additional revenue streams from the telecom operator as it adds new subscribers and from new lines of services that Zain will offer.
As per the contract, which runs in two phases, Tech Mahindra will operate from Zain’s premises in the first phase and will take over the premises and also operate from its own centers in the second phase.
He added, the company will also invest in new hardware such as desktop computers and take over Zain’s existing hardware at depreciated value, depending on its condition.
PLDT completes fibre expansion (Philippine)
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) has completed a US$63.6 million expansion of its fibre-optic network.
The project began in January this year and entailed the deployment of 1,300km of new terrestrial and submarine fibre links between the Bicol region, to the south of Manila, and the central and southern regions of Visayas and Mindanao.
As a result of the expansion, PLDT has extended coverage to ten provinces, including Iloilo and Negros Oriental, providing potential expansion areas for the nation’s business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.
According to PLDT Vice-President and Head of Marketing, Eric Alberto, following the latest initiative, the telco’s fibre-optic network now spans 10,050km connecting 68 nodes, with a total bandwidth capacity of 1.56Tbps.
Airtel to set up headquarters in Nairobi (Kenya)
Bharti Airtel has been allotted five acres of prime land valued at US$6.87 million in Nairobi to build its headquarters in Africa. The land was previously owned by the Postal Corporation of Kenya.
According to Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the government had approved the request by Bharti Airtel to acquire land for their headquarters.
According to Information ministry PS Bitange Ndemo, the company will pay for the value of the land and any other taxes. The government has sold the parcel to a single buyer to speed up their construction process. The request was made to President Kibaki in June when Bharti announced it would be investing US$149.90 million in the next 18 months in Kenya. The company has since revised the investment upwards to US$299.80 million.
Airtel intends to expand its network to reach more rural areas and create 7,000 jobs by 2013. Through partners: IBM, Tech Mahindra, and Spanco — it has outsourced its back office operations such as a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and IT operations.
As per Dr Ndemo, the caliber of Bharti’s partners would attract other international companies to set up operations in Kenya. Every job they create will yield three more in the informal sector, while the government will benefit from tax revenues.
According to Airtel Kenya managing director Rene Meza, Bharti Group doubled the amount they intend to invest in Kenya to increase the capacity on its 2G network to accommodate other operators, under site sharing agreements.
Portugal Telecom acquires GPTI to boost Brazil prospects
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The plans of Portugal Telecom to grow its presences in the Brazilian market has been boosted by its acquisition of local IS/IT provider GPTI. 100% equity stake in GPTI has been taken over by the 100% carrier which paid for by a share issue at its Dedic subsidiary.
Once regulatory approval of the deal is received, 12.5% stake in Dedic will be held by GPTI. However, the figure could hit 20% if performance targets for 2010 and 2011 are met.
hrough GPTI, PT plans to create an integrated IS/IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) company, while strengthening existing relationships in Brazil.
