Source: business.scotsman.com

TELECOM Service Centres (TSC), Scotland’s largest contact centre company, is embarking on a worldwide acquisition trail with ambitious expansion plans for Australia and the United States. Adding to its nine-strong network of UK sites, which stretches from Aviemore to Yorkshire’s Dearne Valley, is the priority for TSC’s chief operating officer, David Ewing, who has set up a “growth team” to cast an eye over acquisitions in English-speaking territories.

The company is also hoping to increase its presence in India through organic expansion and is actively looking at businesses that will complement its call-centre offering.

Ewing said: “TSC is now in a different place. We have set up a growth team to concentrate on acquisitions to delivery.

“We have a global remit and our capability in India not only gives us huge financial stability, it opens the door to new marketplaces like the United States and we are determined to take advantage of those opportunities.

“We are looking for companies that provide frontline services and back-office functions such as human resources, procurement outsourcing and we are very optimistic,” he continued.

“The contact-centre market is largely untapped. There are so many services that impact on the customer and the bottom line and we can provide these services for our clients.”

Launched with just seven employees in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute in the mid-1990s, TSC expanded with further sites in Dunoon, Greenock, Falkirk and Aviemore. In 2003, the firm was the subject of a £24 million management buy-in, funded by the venture capital arm of Lloyds TSB. Further sites in Shawbost on the Isle of Lewis, Glasgow, Dearne Valley in Yorkshire and Kilmarnock are now operational and staff numbers have almost doubled in the past three years to more than 3,000.

Last year, Lloyds Development Capital exited in a £40m deal which saw TSC merge with Hero Ites, the contact arm division of the £2 billion Hero Group conglomerate based in New Delhi. Part of the merger deal involved the retention of the TSC senior management team who now run the Indian arm of the contact-centre operation as well as the UK business.

Earlier this year, the company out-performed the sector with a rise in both turnover and profits as it continues to attract new business with blue-chip clients including Vodafone, T-Mobile, HSBC and Hewlett-Packard. For the year ending 31 August 2007, turnover increased by 12 per cent to £55.1m with profits up £3m to £5.1m.

Ewing, who spent 15 years with Scottish Gas, says he is not satisfied with TSC being “Scotland’s largest contact-centre company, the fourth-largest in the UK and the largest independent” in the UK sector.

He said: “We are really good at growing our existing client base but the future involves looking at how we transform our business. I have now been in the contact-service business for over 25 years and companies need to be flexible.”

Creating further opportunities in India has been bolstered by the merger last year bringing an 800-seat site in Gurgaon, near Delhi, under the control of Ewing and the Scottish-based existing management team.

The model of business process outsourcing is constantly changing, observes Ewing, but the main point should be the aim of adding value. He said providing quality voice services, together with a widening of service provision, will allow TSC to achieve new growth targets. Ewing also believes the industry in India will continue to expand despite some negative press around call-centre staff not understanding clients.

He said companies underestimate how much time it takes to train staff.

“It can take a very long time to get people up to scratch with translations and we spend lots of time making sure the translations and operating model is agreed with both,” he added. “However, in the UK, the main challenge to our growth is not complaints about customer service, but labour availability and I do worry about the poor quality of our education system.”

Source: www.iht.com

NEW DELHI: To understand India’s economic rise, look to its cars.

The iconic Indian automobile of a generation ago was the Ambassador, a noisy, boxy clunker that was ubiquitous despite its ungainly 1950s style.

Compare that to the newest Indian-owned line of cars, the famously sleek and sophisticated Jaguar, which the biggest Indian auto maker, Tata Motors, bought Wednesday, along with Land Rover, in a landmark $2.3 billion deal.

The vehicle upgrade could be a metaphor for the transformation the entire country has gone through in recent years, as the so-called “License Raj” - the stifling state-run socialist system widely blamed for shackling the Indian economy - came to an end, giving rise to a new middle class whose appetite for consumption has reshaped India and spurred a national economic boom.

Now, Indian companies are taking that money and shopping overseas for acquisitions as part of a strategy meant to announce India’s arrival on the global stage.

“It’s a matter of survival,” said Ashutosh Goel, an analyst with the brokerage firm Edelweiss Capital. “To succeed and thrive you have to be a serious global player and not only focused on the domestic market. You can’t remain a purely Indian player.”

Nearly all the leading corporations here - including Reliance Industries and the outsourcing company Wipro - are looking overseas, and reports of Indian acquisitions of U.S., European, and Asian brands have become common.

Many see the newfound assertiveness as a reflection of the general feeling in India that the once-stagnant underachiever now belongs among the international elite. “Indian companies have been in the mood for overseas purchases for a few years now and that coincides with the boom in the economy and the general feel-good factor here,” said Anjana Menon, an editor at Mint, a leading Indian business newspaper.

At the same time, the robust economy and looser regulations have attracted widespread foreign investment, increasing competition and forcing Indian companies to expand overseas to seek sales, analysts said.

Beyond Tata Motors, the crowded car market includes Maruti Suzuki - majority owned by Japanese automaker Suzuki Motors - Hyundai Motor of South Korea, Honda Motor of Japan and U.S. automakers Ford and General Motors.

International companies are interested in more than selling just cars, however. Coca-Cola, which was booted out of India in the 1970s to make way for the local brand Thums-Up, came back in 1993, after the economy opened to foreign investment, and now owns the former rival. In gleaming new malls across India, customers can select German washing machines, Korean air conditioners and Japanese televisions.

Tata, the country’s oldest and largest conglomerate, is the most striking example of an Indian company on an acquisition spree. With roughly 100 companies in everything from salt to software, it has led the charge that has made India an international player.

Tata has emerged from its own economic doldrums with high-profile moves like the purchase of the British steel maker Corus for $13 billion, as well as tea, hotel and automobile companies, sparking an outpouring of national pride. “The Empire Strikes Back!” was one of many headlines Thursday that trumpeted the purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover, brands founded in Britain, the former colonial power in India.

India’s economic rise can be traced back to 1991, when it began shifting toward a Western-style market economy. The boom was led by the outsourcing and technology sectors, which forged a connection between Indian companies and overseas markets.

The new opportunities gave rise to an educated and ambitious middle class, which has lustily embraced consumer culture. “The middle class Indian from a decade ago was more of a saver and he’s a spender now,” Menon said. “There’s a generational shift and there’s more money in people’s wallets and they’re freer to spend.”

Companies like Tata have reaped giant profits that freed them to pursue acquisitions. In five years to March 2007, annual group sales at Tata more than doubled to $29 billion, excluding Corus.

Tata announced the Land Rover and Jaguar acquisition with very little fanfare, apparently anticipating an anti-India backlash. In a sign of how times have changed, Indian companies that once lobbied the government for protection against foreign competition now find themselves battling protectionist sentiments abroad.