Pravin Kumar, CEO, Spanco BPO believes in creating a loyal workforce through empowermentstrategies. For more than 35 years now, he has been working in the manpower intensive industries, performing roles that help him connect with the workforce on a regular basis.

Today, Pravin Kumar considers himself to be adept at dealing with any staff related issues, which in turn makes him an ideal candidate for heading a company whose performance depends so much on the performance of its workforce.

At 57, the Spanco CEO is considered one of the pioneers of the domestic call centre industry in the country. Starting his career way back in 1974 after graduating from the Birla Institute of Technology & Sciences (BITS), Pilani, Pravin Kumar hit the job market with specialization in finance, advertising and sales. Therefore, his first job was neither with a technology or a customer service firm.

Starting off as a hard core finance person, Pravin Kumar shifted focus to a managerial role much later in his career. Even though he had a techno-management and financial background, Kumar preferred to work with people directly and be in the thick of things. "Strategizing, taking new business initiatives have always been my passion. Even when I was not in the BPO segment, I was involved in starting new business divisions," says Kumar. He was instrumental in pushing for privatisation of the UP State Cement Corporation in 1990.

From working with the state government, Kumar moved to a job which would finally take him to become one of the pioneers of the Indian BPO segment. He set up the Mobilink Paging services in India and was the first president of the Indian Paging Services Association. "It was a unique service, and opened up the telecom sector in those days. Paging became popular at a time when GSM was an expensive proposition for the common man.

“However, in 1999 when SMS became free, paging services became a casualty. After that it was a shift to the then nascent contact centre industry," Kumar recalls while fondly ruminating about the days when a ‘beep’ wasn’t just used to camouflage expletives on television. Thereafter, he moved to set up one of the first domestic call centres in the country to handle customer queries.

"Even as I moved to the domestic call centre business, I realised that there was a great business opportunity in the onshore BPO services. That is where we are driving today. Growing in different onshore locations like Africa and UK to handle specific customer demands, even as we increase our focus on growing the domestic business," he says.

He is a strong believer in giving a certain level of freedom of decision making to even most junior level executive within the organisation. Kumar holds the view that the more one empowers the workforce, the better their ability to deliver, and develop a certain level of loyalty towards the company.

"In my organisation even the frontline executives have the authorisation to counsel, waive off payment, and even reschedule loan terms. It is a very rare capacity given by any company to its junior level agents. But this helps the agents in growing confident in delivering on the job processes, as well develop a sense of loyalty towards the company," Kumar says.

After a lifetime in managing businesses with diverse profiles, what keeps him going now? “Well, I enjoy grooming young teams and helping them turn into mature executives and eventually strong business managers. If you look after what is yours, you are bound to get 100 percent results. That is the reasoning I work with when working with young agents. If we strengthen their sense of belonging, they will deliver better," he says.

When he is not travelling (about 10 days a month), Kumar prefers to hole up with his family. He regrets his inability to find time to read fiction as most of his waking hours are spent going through business manuals. “Of course, when one needs to relax, one only looks as far as my little granddaughter,” he says with a twinkle in his eyes.