Firstsource recasts operations; goes in for decentralisation

MUMBAI: BPO Firstsource Solutions has joined other firms such as Avesthagen and Bharti which have already announced or are set to announce a rejig of their organisational structures. The BPO firm has reorganised its business into four strategic business units, each of which will function as an independent profit centre. The reorganisation has already been communicated to its major clients.

The business units will be organised along four major industry groups from which it earns most of its revenues ��� financial services, telecom and media, healthcare and the Asia business unit (BU). Each of the business units will be responsible for its own sales, customer delivery and financial targets.

The unit heads will also have responsibility for market strategy and development of products and services for that industry. Some of the more centralised functions will be moved to the business units with each unit taking responsibility for human resource functions such as training and deployment of people.

Confirming the move, Firstsource MD and CEO Ananda Mukerji said: ���In our business, domain knowledge is what makes a difference. But we couldn���t have done this earlier because we didn���t have the scale... From a financial perspective, it also ensures accountability. Managing a profit centre is very different from just being responsible for sales.���

Healthcare is currently the largest industry group for the company, accounting for about 42% of revenues. Financial services and telecom & media account for about 20% and 24% of revenues respectively, while the Asia BU accounts for 10%.

In an internal mail to employees, the company said: ���The percentage of our revenues coming from areas outside of these industries has declined from 33% in FY04 to 2.2% in FY09... We believe the time has now come to complete the process and reorganise the company into four largely independent business units with its own profit and loss accounts.���

Some of its key personnel have been elevated to leadership positions heading the BUs. Mike Shea, who was founder and CEO of MedAssist (a company Firstsource acquired in 2007), is heading the healthcare business, while Matthew Vallance, who was running the UK operations, will have joint responsibility for the financial services BU and the telecom and media BU.

Individually, Sanjiv Sinha will head the financial services BU and Santanu Nandi, who was executive vice-president of international operations, will head the telecoms and media BU. The Asia business unit, which consists primarily of the India business, will be headed by Chandra Iyer, an executive who moved to Firstsource from ICICI.