VisualSoft to enter BPO space

By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 18 September 2003, 19:30 IST
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HYDERABAD: VisualSoft Technologies Ltd, a software services and products company, is all set to enter the BPO segment with a 400-500 seat centre in Hyderabad, the company’s chairman and managing director D V S Raju has said. VisualSoft Technologies will invest between Rs 35 crore and Rs 40 crore in its BPO initiative, including the planned center in Visakhapatnam. “Our first priority is the Hyderabad center, which we expect to be ready by march next year. The visakhapatnam project will be set up over the next two years. The Vizag project is bigger and will eventually have 2,000 seats,” he said. VisualSoft was looking at several properties in Hyderabad to locate its BPO center, which will handle inbound calls and offer help-desks, transaction processing and claims processing. “Outbound call centers have become risky because of the new telecommunications law which will come into effect in the U.S in October. It will be more difficult for outbound calls, and such call centers will have to invest significantly to change their business model,” Raju said. He said visualSoft expects to sign up at least two clients for its BPO business before the end of 2003-04. Revenues from the BPO segment are expected to flow in next financial year. Referring to the IT services business, Raju said VisualSoft was bullish on the offshore outsourcing stream. “We plan to hire about 400 people for out IT services, because there is a clear upswing in the IT business. While the spending on IT seems to be looking up, companies in the Us have become more stringent with their budgets, with CFOs playing a crucial role in the awarding of outsourcing contracts,” he said. He said VisualSoft would now be focusing on enterprise application integration, and providing end to end solutions, meaning that the company’s software writers would be involved right from the design, architecture and deployment of the software. It would also be involved in re-engineering and migration projects for its clients. Earlier, Raju and his board addressed the annual general meeting of the company. “For the current year, we are confident of meeting the guidance of 20 percent growth,” he told the shareholders of the company.