Bangalore, Thursday, Jul 24, 2008: Telecom service provider Orange has cut its outsourcing contract with 24/7 Customer and the latter's recent announcement related to redeploying over 400 members of its team from Gurgaon to its other centres was probably a result of this decision by the British company.

Published reports today said the 24/7 has already received the termination letter which makes it the second outsourcing contract that it has snapped in the recent past. Orange had severed its links with BPO firm Vortex a few months ago, though it continues to retain IBM Daksh, Congergys and EXL Services.

A report in the Times of India quoting V. Bharadwaj, chief marketing officer at 24/7 Customer, said that the decision to severe links by Orange was part of its plans to reduce outsourcing share to India to the very minimum. He clarified that the client was happy with 24/7 Customer but the decision to part ways was prompted by their segmenting end-users and having it supported from the United Kingdom.

Orange's new CEO, Tom Alexander, had said recently that he would cut the share of the company's outsoucing to India and scale up domestic (UK) presence.

Alexander was quoted as saying that under the company's new strategy was to change the structure of the comapny and the way business works to serve the 21st century customer. These were basically designed to avoid duplication within the company and to ensure agile delivery and quick reaction to customers.

Times of India quoted Avinash Vashistha, CEO of offshoring advisors Tholons as saying that this decision should not be seen as a trend. While telecom major Vodafone is enhancing its presence in India and the reason Orange decided to move out partially could be a result of their perception that consolidating providers in the UK or Ireland would be better as a strategy to gain marketshare.