Raman Roy - father of India's BPO industry

Raman Roy, a serial entreprenuer, has vast experience in starting and scaling up businesses. In 1993, when he convinced John McDonald, the Comptroller at American Express (Amex), to open an operational centre in India, few could have imagined the juggernaut he would set in motion. In 1994, Raman Roy, considered to be the pioneer of the BPO industry in India, set up one of the first financial backrooms in India for American Express, Japan. In 1996-97, Roy pulled out and joined GECIS and helped them set up an outsourcing center in India. In 2000, Roy along with Varadarajan and five others, set up Spectramind, a totally Indian company promoted by venture capitalists.The rest ,as they say , is history. After two years, Wipro became a strategic investor, and in July 2002, Wipro wholly acquired Spectramind. He has successfully led the BPO operations of American Express, GE, and most recently, Wipro Spectramind.

From there, it was Wipro Spectramind ranks the first amongst third party providers in the ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) -BPO sector in India. This pioneer is now known as the Father of the Indian BPO industry and guru of the IT-enabled services business in India.

Prior to Spectramind, Roy was associated with GE Capital where he led the setting up of their flagship remote processing center. Roy was responsible for the conceptualization and implementation of the initiatives including establishing new global service businesses from India, which focussed on providing comprehensive high value add process and service solutions to international clients. He also played a key role in the structuring and setting up processing capabilities for GE Capital’s joint ventures with Mastech USA and State Bank of India—both of which involved the setting up of processing capabilities in India.

Before his successful stint with GE Capital, Roy was the business leader of accounting operations at American Express and played a key role in setting up a global centralized accounting facility in India catering to Europe, USA and the Japan Pacific Asia Australia region. The center presently offers all aspects of accounting services to American Express offices in USA, Europe, Japan, Asia, Pacific and Australia. Roy’s contribution included evolving the strategy, designing and development of the ‘centralized’ center of excellence.

Raman is a chartered accountant from India and a chartered management accountant from the UK. He is also a member of Nasscom and the CII Council of ITeS.

If the world is making telephone calls to India today—calls that help make careers and profits, and calls that have generated employment for nearly 500,000 people so far—there’s one man who has a lot to do with it. The frontrunner of the IT-enabled services revolution in India, he has played a pivotal role in selling and establishing the country’s stature as a locale for remote processing. It is no surprise then, that the two largest companies in the IT-enabled services segment, American Express and GE Caps, grew to their present stature under him.

But ask Roy—considered the ‘Indian Call Center Guru’—about the beginnings, and he brushes it aside as a "mishap". "This entire industry called ITeS happened by accident—with companies discovering that the servicing capabilities that they had were far more valuable than they had thought—for it is not the price, but quality that matters in any kind of service. Around this time, while a lot of companies were exporting IT professionals, some discovered non-IT talent but realized that this was not exportable. This is where technology played a role, where people saw the availability of technology that made distances irrelevant," says Roy. Amex was among the first to see and pan on to the trend. "A lot of people said AmEx had gone loony. But the brave see what no one else does, and AmEx had that ability. It was a great experience to work with Amex. I was part of the India team and just came in with some ideas. It was the success of AmEx that made GE look at India as an option."

Starting his career with Tata Consultancy Sevices in the eighties, young Roy set up the financial services arm of Shivram Fibers. His tryst with BPO destiny began when he joined American Express in 1984 and helped set up its automation services. At Amex, Roy ran up the rungs of authority, notching up several firsts for the global giant—he launched its Indian rupee card, US dollar card and corporate card. Another milestone was his stint as head of operations in technology at Amex. Amex’s runaway success got American corporate giant General Electric to look at India—and today, it is no surprise that GE asked Roy to spearhead its international service as CEO. The road was tough, and as Roy himself admits, he thought "he had made a mistake in joining GE". But the initial hiccups only got him to think and work harder and smarter… In his own words—"We managed to get some great results, but it was mostly because of the fabulous company called GE." But GE’s was a captive unit—and when numerous clients kept asking for a wider range of services, the entrepreneur in Roy finally decided to take a closer look at the VCs lining up at his door. Soon after, Spectramind eServices was born… the rest is recent history. Wipro bought a major stake in Spectramind for a fantastic price—more than the splash the sale made, it brought new credibility to a burgeoning but nascent industry.