Dell opens third contact center in India

Expressing its confidence in the Indian talent when it comes to services its
global custo-mers, global IT major Dell Inc has opened its third contact center
in Mohali. Initially, the center has been flagged off with a workforce of 300
and would start operations on March 28. The company plans to take the overall
strength of this contact center to 1,500 within a period of one year.

"Opening up of this third contact center facility further reinforces our
overall commit-ment towards India as a strategic destination for the company. If
we look in the past, we have always gone to places where the talent is and as we
move forward, we would be exploring new places and opportunities in the Indian
region," explained Michael Dell, Chairman, Dell Inc.

It may be recalled that Dell first established its first contact center at
Bangalore in May 2001and then moved to Hyderabad in March 2003. Overall, the
company is employing over 8,000 employees in both these centers.

As the company has a unique selling model, which calls for direct contact
with its customers, its contact centers are seen as doing the captive operations
for the company. However, owing to the diversity of the business, the company
recently started giving work to third party vendors like Spectramind, 24/7
customer and EXL operating in the Indian region. "When it comes to our
growth in contact center business, we will maintain some balance when it comes
to third party and the captive work in the Indian region," Dell said.

Not revealing much on the investment front, he said that the company has
already invested tens of millions of dollars in the overall contact centers in
the region. "It would not be possible for me to give exact investment, but
we have invested enough in this region and we would continue to investment
according to the growth of the company," he further added.

When asked about his expectations for growth of the company, Dell said that
mov-ing forward, the company would be growing faster than the industry. "We
have gene-rated $49 billion for the last year and moving forward we expect to
grow our EPS faster than the revenue," he added.

Firmly believing in global economy, Dell sells its products and services
worldwide in more than 170 countries and maintains sales offices in 34 countries
around the world. "We firmly believe in global economy. As we enter into
new countries to sell our products, we also try to build those markets,"
Dell explained.

Commenting on the poss-ibility of Dell manufacturing its products in India,
he said that the company looks at certain areas before deciding on the
manufacturing front. "We don't have manufac-turing facilities in every
country that we sell. Firstly, we look for large markets, than a good supply
base of our suppliers and a good import export environment. Right now we have a
manu-facturing base in Penang, Malaysia catering to this region," he added.

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