Riding the IT-Enabled Services Wave
TCS and HDFC Join Hands to Offer IT-enabled
Services (ITES) to Firms Overseas
India's leading retail housing finance company,
the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) and Tata Consultancy
Services (TCS), the leader in software consultancy services, have
set up Intelnet Global Services, a company with 50:50
partnership, to provide IT-enabled services (ITES) to overseas companies.
Intelnet: Plans for Growth
Intelnet's first call center in the Navi Mumbai software
technology park opened in November 2000 with 200
seats and 500 employees. Ramping up from Navi Mumbai, Intelnet will
open centers in Chennai, Bangalore, and Pune, each with 500 seats.
Intelnet plans to grow these operations over the next few years. The company
proposes to employ 3,000 people by its third year of operation, and
within five years, the number will touch 7,000.
Cross-industry Services
Intelnet will offer:
These horizontal services will be offered across
industry verticals such as Financial Services, Hospitality sector,
Airline industry etc. The scope of services would be expanded in the
years to come to include services such as data conversion, web content
development, etc.
Global Clientele
The venture will leverage the considerable IT and
ITES expertise and global client relationships of the two partners
to achieve market leadership. Intelnet plans to market its services
to various international clients including current partners and clients
of TCS and HDFC. Chase Manhattan and Standard Life Assurance are partners
of HDFC. These two groups have substantial back office and call center
activities, which are likely to be outsourced to Intelnet.
ITES: Transforming the Indian Business Landscape
India should see an ITES revolution in the next
ten years. According to a NASSCOM estimate, by 2008 this sector could
generate an additional one million jobs and almost Rs. 81,000 crore
of annual revenue, most of it coming from exports.
Current ITES export from India is about US $230
million and it is expected to grow to US $17 billion by 2008. Indian
costs are roughly one-third of international costs. There is a tremendous
demand for low cost, good quality work in the ITES sector.
Call centers: Global business potential
Call centers have immense business potential
as the current global business of ITES is approximately $10 billion
and is estimated to grow to $140 billion by 2008 and $2000 billion
by 2010.
Opportunities in back-office processing
The market opportunity for back-office processing
in India is huge, says Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. According to its
estimates, in the United States, total revenue from outsourced call
centers amounted to $17 billion in 1998. This business employs 3 per
cent of the working US population and the rate of growth of agent
positions is 20 per cent a year.
Tax concessions for ITES
In the recent amendments to the Budget, the
Government of India has extended concessions to IT Enabled Services,
on par with those available to export-oriented units and units set
up in the Free Trade Zone and Software Technology Parks.
