Warid Telecom Uganda Outsources Call Center Operator

26-March-2012

Having won a contract to run Warid Telecom's call centre operations, Spanco has its eyes firmly placed on distributing Uganda's electricity.

Spanco Limited is a publicly listed company on the Mumbai and national Stock Exchange in India and has diverse business interests in Power, E-Governance, Systems Integration and Business Process Outsourcing Space.

It has formed a joint venture with Mara Group headquartered in Uganda for the East Africa region and specializes in handling customer experience management with clients around the globe.

Mara Group has a business entity spanning across four continents and 17 countries delivering Information Technology products and support services.

Speaking during the announcement of the partnership between Spanco and Warid telecom, Mr. Pravin Kumar, the Global Chief Executive Officer, Spanco disclosed that the company is keen on entering Africa's Power, E-governance and BPO space.

'We have already been given the green light by the Nigerian government and our intention is to get to all these segments in Africa. We shall be extremely keen to step into these areas (Power, E-governance and BPO) in Uganda as well. If we can be granted the chance then we shall take it (power distribution) up," said Kumar.

Warid Telecom awarded Spanco BPO the contract to run its call centre operations as it prepares for growth in the coming years. Currently Warid, runs an 80 seat call centre but Spanco says that they will increase the number of seats in the first year to 150. They will then increase the seats to 500 in the next financial year.

According to calculations, on average, each seat costs between $500 - $600 to manage per month.

The partnership between Spanco and Warid will provide more job opportunities to Ugandans.

Mr. Sriram Yarlagadda, the CEO and Director Telecom Business Africa said that Spanco will be free to join hands with any other telecom companies in the country.

"All in bound calls will be handled by Spanco so as to improve on the customer service experience. As an operator, we have no problem with them dealing with any other company, in fact we encourage them to so that the overall customer experience is increased," Yarlagadda said.

The Observer Newspaper