Pakistan to become call centre activity hub
KARACHI: Pakistan has captured the attention of global players in need of outsourcing call centres because of the upcoming conference titled “Call Centres - Investment Opportunities” to be held here on January 29 and 30.
This was stated by Abdullah Butt, President of newly launched Association of Call Centre Operators on Wednesday while talking to The News.The conference is being organised jointly by Eveready Communications of Pakistan and Rakesh Gupta, Chief Executive of Astra Netcom of India.
According to details, Astra Netcom operates a 1,200-seat call centre in India and its Chairman Rakesh Gupta was instrumental in promoting the Indian initiative in call centres in Europe and North America.
Because of newly announced Indian tax measures for call centres, high employee turnover and escalating operating costs, etc, Gupta is now focusing on Pakistan where he is exploring opportunities to set up a 1,000-seat call centre together with local partners.
Not only that, he is also actively considering routing substantial call centre business to Pakistan, primarily because of the opportunities available here like lower operating costs and availability of required infrastructure.
Over 15 delegates from North America, Europe and India have already sent their confirmations to the conference organisers. These include Teleopti of Sweden, which is a call centre workforce management systems provider.
CEO Teleopti Neil Biltz will tell the conference audience about the issues relating with managing time and human resource in call centres. Another delegate is the Chairman of 3D Networks Australia, Barry Southern, with call centre outsourcing from India in excess of $150m and growing. The company has presence in 17 countries in the areas of customer relations management and networking.
The chairman is coming to this conference to pledge a substantial call centre business to Pakistan. Apart from the above mentioned delegates, others include Chief Operating Officer of Novatel US, Mark Parker; CEO of Sincom - a US-based call centre outsourcing company, Ashish Paul; call centre training expert Gill Nutt, who is the CEO of CCIM UK based in Bangalore, etc.
Alastir Winton, who is from Vulcan Venture Capital Fund UK, is coming to Pakistan to explore opportunities of launching a VC fund for call centres and other IT-enabled businesses Many of the delegates are coming to Pakistan to attend the conference for exploring the local environment and meeting local call centre operators to outsource business.
Sindh IT Minister Kamal Mustafa has pledged government support in providing infrastructure for local call centres. According to the conference organisers, many local entrepreneurs have shown keen interest in participating in this event that will showcase Pakistan in the growing Asian business of call centres, which provide services to their corporate customers in North America and Europe.
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solution like this can increase employment rate in Pakistan as these are man intensive tasks.
other point here, some indians are comming to Pakistan because of lower operating and infrastructure costs, this also send green signals to people who are thinking to invest in off shore call centre solutions.
I would say also the accent is also better and more generic when compared to cross border rivals who has strong indian accent and oftenly fail to change according to client requirement.