Monday, August 6, 2001		Article

‘IF a call centre cannot be established in India, it cannot be established in any part of the world,’ says Roopinder Singh Sangha from Global Ring, a Los Angeles-based call centre company.

He plans to invest heavily in Punjab and Chandigarh in the coming years, specifically focussing on the call centre sector. Global Ring already has a 50-seat call centre at Jalandhar and another one in Bhubneshwar (Orissa) working in day and night shifts.

‘People in Orissa are more professional in approach than us Punjabis. They are full of knowledge and take their jobs very seriously. Even their approach is more broad-minded as compared to us,’ he says. On being asked how they overcome their South Indian accent, which is often considered an impediment in this business, he says that US trainers had been especially flown in to train a selected lot of call centre agents for their company.

Sangha, who believes in in-house training, avers that call centre business in India failed miserably for some, as they did not have a viable business model in front of them. "Of course, you cannot remote control US clients from India. An office in the USA is a must," he says and asserts that even at this juncture, 99 per cent of clients, India-wide, are from the USA, with just 1 per cent sourcing their calls from rest of the countries.

"Only those who are feeling insecure in the business are going in for tie-ups. For those who are at the top already do not need to go in for alliance of any kind," this lanky bachelor says. "This business in 80 per cent human capital and 20 per cent capital," he adds.