This story is from September 27, 2007

Aviva's BPO biz on the block

T Surendar / TNN / Sep 27, 2007, 01:36 IST

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Aviva Global Services is said to be in talks to sell its business process outsourcing (BPO) units in India.

MUMBAI: Aviva Global Services (AGS), the outsourcing arm of insurance major Aviva Plc, is said to be in talks to sell its business process outsourcing (BPO) units in India. It plans to put on the block call centres it owns and runs in Pune and Bangalore.
Though specific details are still not available, a industry professional says that the company has appointed bankers as a preclude to the selling process.A few local companies, including WNS and EXL, are said to have evinced interest in taking over Aviva call centres.
Recently, AGS deferred a previous plan to transfer staff from its partners in Pune to its own centres by three months. In an e-mailed response, an AGS spokesperson said, "The additional three-month time period will be used to review all potential business options, prior to making any changes or committing to any major developments."
Aviva built its operations with a build-own-transfer (BOT) arrangement with third party BPO companies like 24/7 Customer, EXL and WNS. It has since transferred 4,500 agents from these companies to its own centres and had planned to take the tally to 7,800 agents by 2008.

Now, in recent times, two high profile exits by GE and Citigroup from running their call centres is forcing others to re-evaluate their business options.
The captive units are handing over their businesses to local firms as they feel that Indian third party BPOs have matured in their service offerings and stabilised operations.
In the recent past, companies like TCS, Firstsource and Infosys got captive businesses of their clients both in India and abroad. Industry sources estimate that the valuation of Aviva business will be based on the impending sale of Citigroup, which is expected to be decided over the weekend.

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