Tata Telecom eyes application space for call centre solutions business

Shipra Arora / New Delhi

After focusing on the infrastructure side of the call centre solutions market, Tata Telecom is now preparing to strengthen its focus on the applications side. The strategy comes in a bid to position itself beyond being just a pure infrastructure company in the call centre solutions space. Towards this, the company is expanding its portfolio of application solutions for the market, and is terming them value-added offerings. The series of value-added solutions would be brought to the Indian market through strategic partnerships.

Presently, applications account for around 20-25 percent of Tata Telecom’s call centre solutions business. It wants them to grow to around 30-35 percent of the business over the next one year. The company is now trying to move its call centre solutions business from pure infrastructure to a more balanced infrastructure and application split in an effort to grow the business. Over the next one to two years the company’s strategy will be focused on the applications space, which is being targeted as a significant growth driver. According to Amit Mehta, the company’s national marketing manager for call centre solutions, the Indian market has evolved; on the products side people have gone past the investment stage, and what is happening now is the optimisation of investments and operations. “This is driving the growth opportunity in the application space and is therefore going to be an important part of our growth strategy moving forward,” he added.

Strengthening its solutions offering in the applications area, Tata Telecom has recently tied up with IEX to market their workforce management solution in India. The solution is targeted at multimedia contact centres and traditional call centres. The company has carried out its own first pilot for the solution at a 1,400-agent site. It is presently in talks with various companies for the solution, and is expecting to strike three to four deals over the next year.

Tata Telecom is also looking at forging more global alliances in the next financial year to bring in more value-added solutions, thereby providing consultative aspects to its call centre solutions. One of them is expected to come about within the first quarter with the offer on board in the US. The alliance, informed Mehta, will be for a solution in the area of performance optimisation which will further enhance and complement IEX’s offerings. The solution will go beyond just scheduling and get into incentives for agents with a balanced score card approach. This will add to its existing portfolio of solutions from NICE Systems and Symon Communications.