Shipping firms drop anchor at BPO

MUMBAI: Here’s another industry that is waking up to India’s attraction as a business process outsourcing (BPO) destination. Shipping companies from all over the world have either set up their BPO operations here, or are in the process of establishing new shops in IT-savvy India.

Maersk Infotech, which already employs over 1,000 professionals in its Powai facility, is now ramping up operations. The BPO operations of the Danish major Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, includes a whole array of business processes such as auditing, preparation of bills of lading and updating the company’s intranet.

The Japanese Mitsui OSK Line (MOL) is the latest entrant to India, while another Japanese major NYK and Northern Marine of the US are believed to be in the process of setting up a shop in India.

The UK-based P&O Nedlloyd and CP Ships of the US have already established their BPO operations in India — in Pune, Mumbai and Chennai.

“Opportunities are abundant as far as cost areas are concerned,” said an industry official, adding that for every job created in India, there are huge savings elsewhere. They said mostly commerce graduates and post graduates, with or without additional qualifications like chartered accountant (CA) and financial analyst, and IT professionals are in great demand.

For MOL, the BPO operations in Mumbai, flagged off on February 1, form a part of its long-term strategy. The company has drawn up plans to grow rapidly worldwide in the next few years, by increasing capacity through vessel acquisitions and going into new sectors.

“This would entail a lot more systems and procedures, which, in turn, would call for more people to be employed at our different local offices. Hence we have decided to centralise some of the back-office operations, so that the routine processing work is done centrally instead of locally,” said Michael Goh, deputy managing director and chief operating officer of MOL (Asia), who visited Mumbai recently.

India is one of the four countries from where Maersk operates its BPO operations, the others being Taiwan, China and the US. India has picked up a large chunk of the group’s business, according to a senior Maersk official.

CP Ships is outsourcing all its accounting for Europe/Asian operations to its Mumbai office. It is rolling out the outsourcing operations in phases, and has already recruited 400 people for documentation-related jobs.

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