More and more companies are eyeing Nashik to set up their BPO centre as Mumbai and Pune have already reached a saturation level.

Currently, nearly 20 IT companies, including BPO companies like WNS Global Services, Tricom India, and Datamatics have found a new home in Nashik. According to a recent report on top alternative destination for BPOs in India by US-based consultancy firm Alsbridge, for smaller cities, Nashik tops the list followed by Mangalore

Mangalore already has companies like Wipro, First American Corporation, and Mphasis, while Jaipur has one significant presence, Genpact. Ahmedabad is another upcoming city where companies like Bosch Rexroth, Stork, and Oracle are operating.

“Nashik is just witnessing the shift that is happening globally with other tier III cities,” says Sabyasachi Satyaprasad, head of advisory services at research firm NeoIT. “There is increasing intent by both third-party service providers and captive BPOs to shift to tier III cities like Nashik to optimise the cost of operations resulting due to high attrition rates and increasing real estate costs in top IT cities,” he adds.

Nashik officials are touting huge manpower resources as one of the selling point for the city to the talent-starved ITeS industry. According to a government source, the current strength of BPO workforce in Nashik is believed to be around 2,000, but the number is expected to swell up to 10,000 by 2009.

Shifting to Nashik has resulted in 10-15% savings in manpower costs for Tricom, said Mr Kothari. It is interesting to note that along with the BPO ready workforce in the region, companies opening centres in Nashik are also banking on the undergraduate college population to join the companies as they adopt the earn-and-learn model, say recruiters in the city.

Mr Kanodia corroborates the issue. “Not many in a city like Nashik are exposed to international working standards, which is a major hurdle for us to shift our entire energies,” he adds. Says a WNS spokesperson, further explaining that the skill levels for talent base in Nashik do not match the voice-based services, hence most of the BPO work in the city, at present, is non-voice data processing. WNS has nearly 1,500 employees for its non-voice transaction processing in Nashik.

People in Nashik are yet to come to terms with the demands of the BPO industry. The city is yet to develop the BPO culture as is prevalent in other cities. Recruiters say that Nashik is still a conservative city. “It is difficult to get women employees to work late shifts in BPO companies,” says a local recruiter.

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