BUSINESS RESPONSE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS FROM SERVION

In today's business, speed has become the key when it comes to interaction within and outside an Organisation. Customer satisfaction plays an important role in building businesses. Organisations are realising the need to pro-actively respond, notwithstanding the ways, means, time and location of communication. You could communicate through web, voice, e-mail or fax at the time and location convenient to the customer. Business Response Management tools help integrate the organisation's customer interaction channels into a single system. Servion global Solutions Ltd, is in the response management business. Its Contact Centre Suite of products and Systems Integration capabilities are all set to revolutionise this market.

Chennaibest.com speaks to N Raghunandan - Managing Director, Servion Global Solutions Ltd. about this market.

This is a very generic market. It has got nothing to do with technology. The market for this solution is extremely huge and untapped. There is a huge segment that is outsourcing these solutions. In India we are talking to third party call centres. I think this market will be fully exploited in another 3 to 4 years time.

For a 100 seat call centre, the investment would be anywhere between Rs 5 - 8 crores. Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai seem to be the preferred destination for these call centres. The total market size for these solutions is $ 32 billion, according to the Gartner group, which is the biggest Company in the world, offering this solution. The demand and growth are basically dependent on how Indian Companies will respond to this solution. The demand has to be created in the Indian context.

Banks, Financial Institutions, the Telecom sector, the hospitality industry, the transport and Insurance sector.

It basically depends on how automated or personalised they want it to be. The cost can run from anywhere between RS 1 lakh to a few crores. Servion products can handle more than 10 million interactions (voice / fax / web / e-mail) per month. And our products can be customised to suit the specific requirement of each industry.

Do you see any resistance among the Indian Companies in using these solutions?

The resistance is only monetary. People find the costs prohibitive. They are not very sure about investing huge sums of money in this.

Only companies that are dependent on the US market will be affected. We have to look at this situation as both a problem and an opportunity. Indian IT companies have to explore and develop the possibilities in other new markets. We have to do things more differently, we have to change the way we work. The response management solution sector has not been directly affected, but repercussions are there. If I am setting up an office for a company based in the US, the general decision making process will take time. As far as Servion goes, only 15 to 20% of the business is in the US, so we have not been affected too much.

It is a possibility. There is a lot of speculation that the slowdown in the US will bring a lot of IT companies into India. If it happens its good for us. But how much of this (speculation) will convert into actuals is still suspect.

|