Hill kingdom calling
As a senior executive in the fast-growing BPO industry, Rajat Ohri is used to receiving phone calls from the oddest of places and times and has even altered his working schedule to keep up with this unusual schedule. However, in mid-Janurary this year, Ohri, a BPO industry veteran of seven years, was taken aback when he got a call from the Bhutanese royal family to visit the landlocked hill kingdom and set up its first call centre.
"They were worried about spiraling unemployment (in double digits and rising) and thought that the BPO industry would help them generate hundreds of jobs required to curtail figure to well below 10 per cent," says Ohri. The result: Drukonnet Business Services, Bhutan's first BPO facility, set up with a $7 million investment (primarily from the royal family) and a capacity of 500 seats. While Ohri is currently training 600 people at the centre in Thimpu, Bhutan's quaint capital, he says the centre will go live in September this year, servicing Fortune 500 customers in the telecoms and financial services markets.
"Bhutan doesn't have a legacy in BPO like India or the Philippines but at the same time it doesn't have any of the attendant problems," says Ohri, Drukonnet's Chief Executive. "Infrastructure issues are minimal, attrition is non-existent." Without revealing customer names, he says that the centre will undertake low-level (l1 in industry-speak) customer support and back office processing tasks at this first 88,000 sq. ft centre, before expanding its presence in three other locations across the country. "We have pre-signed $30 million in deals with American customers and eventually hope to have 2,000 seats and 10,000 people across our facilities in Bhutan," says Ohri.
According to him, there are around 300 Bhutanese people employed in facilities across India and Drukonnet has attracted a significant number of them back home to lend some experience to Drukonnet's operations. "English is the language of communication in Bhutan and our focus will be on polishing accents and getting employees used to the work culture in a call centre," Ohri says.
A country of around 750,000 (roughly the population of San Francisco), Bhutan's primary industry is agriculture and has only recently begun to open up to the rest of the world. Although the country is currently transitioning into a democracy, Drukonnet's backing has come from the royal palace, with Princess Ashi Pema Lhadon Pem Pem Wangchuck, the King's sister, being the Patron-in-Chief of the company. While Ohri has previously started BPO initiatives from the ground-up for the likes of United Telecom and Khoday's, he says it took a while for the Bhutanese to convince him of this venture's viability. "I thought over this long and hard for a month and checked with several people before taking the plunge," he says. Will others follow suit? Yes, if the Princess can help.
