BPM firms get more staff back to work in small towns amid stringent restrictions in metros

BENGALURU: With metros remaining virus prone, business process management (BPM) companies are getting staff to work from offices in small towns, as clients in the banking and finance sectors have asked them to cut back on work from home due to data security concerns.
Most employees in metro cities are working from home due to strict restrictions on the movement of people and as the number of Covid-19 cases rise sharply, many state governments are thinking of extending lockdowns with varied restrictions in large cities.

"There will be a surge in demand across tier-3 and tier-4 towns as ecommerce and delivery companies will now see a shift to cater to these emerging markets. There will thus be an opportunity for increased volumes of customer enquiries, supply chain management and back office services," Rajiv Ahuja, president of BPM firm Startek, told ET.

Small cities and towns have been relatively less impacted by the outbreak and will therefore provide a good alternative to driving economic revival, he added.

WNS, one of the largest BPM companies, has seen less than 10% staff working from offices across India, with two small city delivery centres gradually resuming functioning.

Among tier-2 and tier-3 cities in the country, WNS has delivery centres in Nashik and Vizag.

WNS has resumed minimal operations from offices these cities, “in line with governmental orders from time-to-time, and duly considering social distancing and other norms to ensure the health and safety of our employees," said Keshav Murugesh, Group CEO of WNS.

The BPM employees who are working from offices in small cities are delivering services that clients have disallowed from home.

"Employees presently working from our offices are typically those who can’t WFH due to security or bandwidth concerns or where clients have not approved WFH due to the critical nature of operations involved," said Murugesh.

EXL Service, another BPM leader, has nearly 5% of employees working from offices in metro cities.

IT-BPM industry body Nasscom said member companies have realised that the work model for the sector will be blended one in the long run and that the percentage of work from offices would depend on clients.

“A lot of people are recognising that the blended model is the future. For specific segments in the industry, such as BPM, it is harder to operate with a large pool of employees from home since they deal with client data on a real-time basis,” said Sangeeta Gupta, chief strategy officer, Nasscom.