Even as the controversy regarding outsourcing is yet to die down, the world's seventh largest life insurer Aviva Plc said on Wednesday that it will recruit 1,100 more people in India by this December for its BPO units to take the total headcount to 3,800.
"We will have 3,800 people by this calendar year. At present, we have 2,700 people in the call centres in India," Aviva's Service Improvement director John Hodgson told reporters in Dubai.
Outsourcing and India: Complete Coverage
Of the 3,800 people, 3,400 would be for IT-enabled services and the remaining 400 for IT offshoring. The increase in outsourcing comes in the wake of 37 per cent rise in profitability of Norwich Union, the brand name of Aviva in the UK.
Hodgson said by next year, its general insurance would have outsourced 15 per cent of its work abroad, including India.
The private life insurer, which has call centres in Bangalore, Pune and Noida, said the reasons for setting up a shop in India was primarily due to increased flexibility and need to lower the cost base of the company.
"We have not come to India seeking cheap labour but because of the long term commitment," he said, adding that India figured well ahead of Sri Lanka and China when the company evaluated locations for its BPO unit.
He said the insurer had evaluated different modules including outsourcing, self-build, managed service and build-operate-and-transfer, but chose outsourcing as the best option.
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