Sutherland Global Services, a US-based BPO company has diversified into non-voice operations. The company primarily focused on voice process. The BPO company offers horizontal solutions such as finance accounting, creative, secretarial and administrative services in the non-voice process.

“Non-voice in an important focus now along with voice to get aggressive profit margins in the range of 30-40 per cent,” said a senior company official. But he didn’t mention the total revenue and the contribution from the two business segments.

Many BPO companies have reduced their voice component of their business, in the last few years because of high employee churn rates and quality issues. Several research reports also predict the demise of the voice business in India due to lower margins and high amount of automation including interactive voice response (IVR).

The senior company official said that though automation has caught up in the segment customers still prefer human integration. He also added that Indian companies have matured in the voice business and in the coming years the process will be shifted to emerging BPO locations like Philippines. Indian vendors will handle only the critical part that will directly impact the customer’s business.

The BPO company has eight centres in India – six in Chennai, one in Kochi and one in Mumbai. The company has got 25 acres of land from Tamil Nadu government at the Madurai, Thiruchirapalli, Tirunelveli special economic zones. Sutherland was also allotted 62 acres of land at Sholinganallur IT park near Chennai. These facilities are expected to create 10,000 jobs when they are fully operational.