More than 200 per cent growth in headcount, over 100 per cent growth in revenues ? the past two years have seen a spurt in activity at Acclaris Business Services Ltd.
And riding the boom in the BPO industry and cashing in on the craze to compete on costs, the city-based company ? headquartered in Tampa, in the US ? is now planning the next round of expansion.
Virginia-based venture capital fund Updata Partners is lending its weight to the four-year-old company, which started its journey from Calcutta, by chipping in with around $ 5 million.
?We were just 24 in July 2003 and now we have around 194 people across our three offices. The target is to reach 300 by the end of December 2005 and ramp up to over 600 in another year?s time,? said Dipankar Mandal, executive vice-president, global solutions, and founder of Acclaris Business Services Ltd.
To meet its target expansion plan, the company has already booked additional space in Sector V in the Salt Lake Electronics Complex.
Acclaris is also planning to pump in around $ 1 million in the next year to facilitate the growth objective.
With its offices in Calcutta, Visakhapatnam and Tampa, the high-end BPO outfit serves over 160 clients ? the list even includes one Fortune 25 company ? in the US by processing over 16 million transactions per month.
The company is engaged in providing high-end processing solutions in areas like insurance claims, third-party administration and accounting.
?We think that lower-value process outsourcing will be replaced by more advanced technology or emerging markets, such as China, that can do similar processes at a lower price. So, our focus is high value and complex processes that can be assisted by technology, but not replaced by technology,? said Mandal, explaining why the company will stay away from call centre, transcription and data entry.
With its fully SOX complaint service delivery models, a precondition to serve some major US clients, Acclaris has already found a stronghold among its clients.
?Now, we are looking at bigger corporations and also cross-selling our services. Though our focus has always been on the US market, we have decided to explore opportunities beyond the US market,? summed up Mandal.
