Progeon chosen preferred service provider of BT for BPO

Bangalore: Progeon Ltd (www.progeon.com), the business process outsourcing (BPO) subsidiary company of Infosys Technologies, has announced that it has been chosen by BT, one of the world's leading provider of telecommunications services, as one of its two preferred suppliers to provide BPO services from India. Under the framework contract, Progeon will provide a wide range of services to BT, including back-office processing and inbound and outbound calls.

Progeon is in the process of establishing one of the newest BT 'next-generation contact centres' (NGCC) in Bangalore, adhering to strict standards laid down by BT on infrastructure, facilities, health and safety, and technology. Initially a dedicated telecom link of about 17 Mbps will be established between Progeon premises in Bangalore and BT's co-locations in the UK.

Under the 'framework' contract, Progeon will initially execute work for BT Directories and over time this may be extended to include a wider range of work. BT Retail is investing in a high capacity communications switch to be located at Bangalore. The provision of Directory Enquiries services will be the largest and most complex implementation of a voice capability in the country, with call volumes likely to be in the region of several million calls per month.

Says Progeon managing director and CEO Akshaya Bhargava: “We are delighted at winning this business from BT Retail. Directory enquiry services require very significant infrastructure, meticulous planning, flawless execution, complex cultural training and very tight operations management to achieve some of the most exacting performance standards in the world. This deal will bring many of the core competencies of Progeon and Infosys to the forefront and we will strive to exceed the expectations of a customer as sophisticated and demanding as BT.

“BT floated a tender to several international and Indian BPO providers for selecting potential partners, and Progeon was chosen by virtue of its top-class facilities, experienced and committed management team and the ability to scale up. Progeon is the only BPO service provider that is co-located in its IT parent company's campus and the two work seamlessly with each other. Given the large and technologically complex nature of implementation required, Progeon is very well placed to leverage these strengths.“

Says BT Retail CEO Pierre Danon: “The contract to provide us with services in India was put out to competitive tender. Prospective partners were assessed against a detailed set of criteria and it was agreed that Progeon was well suited to our requirements.“ With the addition of BT, Progeon now has clients in the financial services and telecom sectors to whom it provides a wide variety of transaction processing and related services.

BT Retail is one of the businesses that make up the BT Group. It is the UK's leading communications service provider and the prime channel to market for the other businesses in the group. It has 21 million residential and business customers, a turnover of £12.1 billion (in the last full financial year) and around 50,000 employees.

Progeon provides business process management services to Global 2000 companies. Leveraging the benefits of service delivery globalisation, process redesign and technology, Progeon drives efficiency and cost-effectiveness into client's business processes. Progeon and Infosys work closely together to provide a complete outsourcing solution to the client, addressing the client's technology as well as BPO needs.