BPO India - Shipping firms to set sail on the BPO Wave

Shipping companies are the next BIG entrants in the BPO sectors who are either in the process of establishing new shops in BPO-savvy India or have already set up shops. Maersk Infotech, which already employs over 1,000 professionals in its Powai facility, is now ramping up operations. The BPO operations of the Danish major Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, includes a whole array of business processes such as auditing, preparation of bills of lading and updating the company’s intranet.

The Japanese Mitsui OSK Line (MOL) is the latest BPO entrant to India, while another Japanese major NYK and Northern Marine of the US are believed to be in the process of setting up a BPO in India. Already, the UK-based P&O Nedlloyd and CP Ships of the US have put up their anchors in the BPO operations in India namely -- Pune, Mumbai and Chennai. “Opportunities are abundant as far as cost areas are concerned,” said an industry official, adding that for every job created in India, there are huge savings elsewhere The officers here, are mostly the commerce graduates and postgraduates; with or without additional qualifications like chartered accountant (CA) and financial analyst, and IT professionals are in great demand.

The Mumbai based MOL - a BPO flagged off its operations on February 1, forming a part of its long-term strategy. This BPO has drawn up plans to grow rapidly worldwide in the next few years, by increasing capacity through vessel acquisitions and going into new sectors. “This would entail a lot more systems and procedures, which, in turn, would call for more people to be employed at our different local offices. Hence we have decided to centralize some of the back-office operations, so that the routine processing work is done centrally instead of locally,” said Michael Goh, deputy managing director and chief operating officer of MOL (Asia), who visited Mumbai recently.

Priyanka. S