Kale opens new MPS centre, forays into other BPO verticals

Mumbai: Kale Consultants, the airline and banking solutions provider, plans to expand its business process outsourcing (BPO) to other industry verticals like banking, travel and transport.

Branding its BPO business as managed process services (MPS), Kale has built a niche in the outsourcing value chain. The branding highlights the value-added nature of Kale's offerings, wherein the complete responsibility and ownership of outsourced business processes rests with Kale. Thus, the value to customers is not only cost arbitrage, but business transformation and optimisation as well.

As part of its expansion plans, Kale has set up new facilities in Mumbai. Nasscom president Kiran Karnik inaugurated Kale's new MPS centre here today.

Says Kale managing director Vipul Jain: "We are proud to inaugurate our new centre, which will help us improve operational efficiencies and meet the needs of new customers. Our MPS growth plans are based on a three-prong strategy: increased customer acquisitions, increased service offerings in the airline domain and penetration into new verticals like banking and travel and transport. This is the first phase of expansion of our outsourcing services. Over the next three years, we expect MPS to grow exponentially and form the backbone of our business growth."

Currently, the centre accommodates around 200 people per shift. With plans to recruit 800 employees by 2006, the centre will be ramped up in two more phases. The state-of-the-art MPS centre uses Kale's award-winning software products (Revera, Apex, Faregain and Prism) to provide outsourcing services.

Says Kale senior vice-president (MPS operations) Satish Ambe: "Quality focus and continuous process and technology improvements are the cornerstones of our MPS operations. Our core team of domain experts and highly-skilled professionals ensures that our service-level commitments to our customers are consistently met."

Unlike other pure BPO/IT-enabled services players, who focus primarily on the cost advantage, Kale's MPS model offers value-added services to its customers. This competitive advantage will enable Kale to catapult itself into a new growth trajectory in the present challenging environment.

MPS covers all BPO services offered by Kale across various industry verticals. Currently, the MPS offerings include revenue accounting and sales audit services for the airline industry. The unique feature of Kale's MPS offering is that it uses its own products and processes to provide these services.

These are constantly upgraded based on Kale's interaction with customers and industry partners. Thus, Kale has complete system ownership, occupying the highest niche in the outsourcing value chain. Kale offers customers multiple delivery options with high-value addition, thus reducing the total cost of ownership.

Kale is a leading IT solutions provider, leveraging three strategically located development centres in India, Kale is a global organisation with over 600 professionals, six international offices and customers in more than 20 countries across the world.