Raman Roy, the founder and CEO of Quatrro BPO Solutions is one of the pioneers of the Indian BPO industry. Decision-making and solving operational problems are his forte. Here, he shares with us some tips for early stage entrepreneurs.
Raman Roy, the founder and CEO of Quatrro BPO Solutions is one of the pioneers of the Indian BPO industry. Decision-making and solving operational problems are his forte. Here, he shares with us some tips for early stage entrepreneurs.
The year 1984 was an important one for India. A good six-years before liberalisation an extremely important event occurred. American Express started India’s first ever business process outsourcing (BPO) operation in the country. Today, the IT-BPO industry puts India on the global radar and offers more jobs than any other industry in urban India.
Raman Roy, then a manager at American Express, was the man at the center of affairs. He convinced his bosses into believing that an outsourcing facility could be operated out of India. In spite of the infrastructural, hiring and technological challenges, Roy and his team beat all theorists’ opinions and set up American Express’ support operations in India. Following this stint, he moved to head operations at GE’s outsourcing facility now known as Genpact. In 2000, Roy decided to make the transition from being a manager to start Spectramind. “While the fact that I wouldn’t have a boss was exciting, the lack of the large organizational backup was scary,” shares Roy. Spectramind was among the first few BPO’s in India that catered to third party clients. In 2002, after exiting Spectramind, he started Quatrro BPO solutions to focus on higher-end knowledge process outsourcing services.
“Quatrro’s focus is to offer our clients beyond what exists today,” says Roy. They employ highly qualified engineers, doctors, chartered accountants, business editors and several other knowledge professionals to serve 200 clients from around the world. Roy adds, “We are focused on new service areas, new markets. We’re looking at serving millions of markets worth dozens, instead of dozens of markets worth millions”. Today, Quatrro’s service lines include risk, mortgage, finance and accounting, legal solutions and interactive entertainment services among others. They operate 13 centers across seven countries to serve their clients world over.
The Smart CEO caught up with Roy to understand what he learnt over the last 26 years in the IT-BPO industry and this is what he had to say.
Decision Making “If you are someone who makes decisions, you are bound to make correct decisions and wrong decisions. The important thing is to learn from these mistakes and always keep that learning in mind.”
Listening to the customer
“Listening to the customer and translating that to the realities of the business is one of the most difficult and important things to do. Once we had two delivery centers one each in Delhi and Mumbai. We appointed center heads in these two facilities and they operated almost like independent centers. Soon we realized that our client didn’t see the two facilities as two different centers and we had to take corrective action. Every aspect of your business has to be decided keeping the client in mind.”
The fulfillment side “Especially in services, there are two aspects we always need to remember. The customer side and the fulfillment side. Sometimes, when your service offers value, getting the clients is not the only problem. Delivering what he needs is as important. That’s where the team comes in. Delegating tasks to the right leaders and business unit heads and monitoring them is key.”
