WNS opens its South Carolina centre, eyes local talent

New York: The Indian outsourcing issue is a hot potato in the run-up to the US presidential elections in November with politicians of every stripe trying to whip up frenzy about jobs being Bangalored. But WNS , which is headquartered in Mumbai, is doing a fine job of shutting folks up by opening a 23,000 square foot delivery centre in Columbia, South Carolina.

WNS, which provides higher-end Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services to American and European companies, described the South Carolina facility as a 300-seat centre. The Indian tech-service specialist which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange plans to start operations in July. WNS could also add two more centres in the next 12-18 months, according to Reuters .

Nikki Randhawa Haley, the governor of South Carolina, who has been putting out the welcome mat for Indian companies, was understandably pleased with the WNS announcement this week. She recently invited Nirupama Rao, the Indian ambassador to the US, to Charleston on a three-day visit to discuss the potential of doing business with Indian tech and infrastructure firms.

“This is a big win for South Carolina and the Midlands. We are thrilled that WNS has selected our state for their first US-based delivery facility, and celebrate the investments and the new jobs WNS will create through this centre,” said Haley .

The South Carolina centre is expected to provide WNS’s US-based clients with onshore services and solutions related to finance, accounting, research and analytics. The new WNS centre in South Carolina will not replace jobs in low-cost countries like India, Philippines or Costa Rica, but will allow US clients to outsource roles to WNS that are higher end, that they are happy to take out of their office, but not out of the country.

“We already have interest from both existing and prospective clients in this new center, and expect to begin hiring and finalizing new contracts in the coming months,” said Keshav Murugesh, group CEO, WNS.

Murugesh said increasing the firm’s global delivery footprint was critical to providing clients with the “proper combination of onshore, near-shore and offshore capabilities.”

“This new centre will enable us to partner more closely with our US-based clients and offer services that are strategic and higher-end in nature,” said Murugesh.

WNS has grown rapidly by shunning call centre contracts and concentrating instead on better-paying business process outsourcing deals. WNS has been focusded on providing more “core services” for insurance and travel companies. Margins for call centre work are in the low double-digits, but they can top 30 percent for higher-end tasks, according to Nasscom.

In 2008, WNS was part of one of the largest buyouts of a foreign captive BPO in India by buying British insurance giant Aviva’s captive South Asian outsourcing operation. WNS paid $228 million for Aviva’s captive operations in Bangalore, Pune, Chennai and Sri Lanka. In return, Aviva agreed to pay up to $1 billion to WNS over eight years for handling customer service and claims processing. WNS started the trend of seeing a string of captives moving on to third parties as Western firms felt they were better off leaving the responsibilities of having strong back-office operations run by Indian specialists like WNS.

According to Reuters, WNS, which raised about $45 million in February through the sale of American depository shares, also plans to open centres in Europe and China.