Close on the heels of its first successful transfer in Bangalore, India, Aviva Global Services has announced the successful transfer of over 300 accounting and finance professionals from WNS Customer Solutions in to Aviva Global Services in Colombo, on 2 July, 2007.
- Creates BOT history once again in the IT/ITeS world
Close on the heels of its first successful transfer in Bangalore, India, Aviva Global Services has announced the successful transfer of over 300 accounting and finance professionals from WNS Customer Solutions in to Aviva Global Services in Colombo, on 2 July, 2007. Aviva Global Services (AGS) is the business process and IT outsourcing (BPO and ITO) arm of Aviva plc.
Aviva - UK's largest Insurance company and the world's fifth largest - had previously announced its plans to grow to 7,800 BPO roles in the subcontinent by end 2008. Offshoring has always been a key component of Aviva's global growth strategy providing it with flexibility, productivity, process and cost efficiency while maintaining the high quality of customer servicing expected.
Aviva has built the offshore BPO roles in partnership with three vendor partners - EXL, WNS and 24/7 Customer under the BOT model. Aviva is demonstrating its commitment to India and Sri Lanka by transferring over 4,500 of its third party BPO vendor staff to its own offshore division, Aviva Global Services over the course of the year 2007. This successful transfer marks a momentous achievement as the sheer size and scale of such a transfer is unique to the IT / ITeS industry across India and Sri Lanka.
Cathryn Riley, chair AGS, based in UK, quoted: "This is a moment of great pride for both Aviva plc and AGS, as we welcome our colleagues in Sri Lanka in to the Aviva family. As planned, the transition has been seamless and transparent to the UK business units, our employees and also to end customers."
Rajnish Virmani, CEO, Aviva Global Services, said: "This successfully executed transfer will serve as a great learning, and indeed is a matter of great pride for us. The build and transfer of operation in Sri Lanka marks a critical step in the execution of a well laid-out off shoring strategy for Aviva. A critical success factor in this journey has been the close relationship we enjoy with WNS and they will continue to run our Legal Services division here in Colombo. The BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer) contract with them has enabled Aviva to ramp up rapidly and gain ‘speed to market'."
Speaking of the transfer, Eric Selvadurai, CEO, Enterprise Services, WNS Global Services, said: "WNS is proud of our association with Aviva Global Services, and are extremely pleased that our BOT contract delivered the promised efficiencies. The Sri Lanka centre, housing a ‘finance and accounting centre of excellence' is a world class operation, and we were committed to managing a smooth transition."
The Aviva operations in Colombo will house the "finance and accounting centre of excellence" and will boast of a team of about 300 highly qualified finance and accounting professionals most of who are either in the process of acquiring their CIMA/ACCA certification or are already CIMA/ACCA certified professionals.
Next only to UK, Colombo has the rare distinction of producing the highest number of CIMA/ACCA certified finance and accounting professionals in the world, and was therefore the natural choice of destination for the finance and accounting centre of excellence. The Lanka operations cater to Aviva's business units as a captive knowledge process outsourcing unit providing high-end finance and accounting services to Norwich Union Life, Norwich Union Insurance and Aviva Corporate Finance.
"We are proud to become a part of the Aviva family. Over the last three years, we have been focused on successfully delivering to the stringent performance metrics and service level agreements. Aviva has been extremely supportive and happy with the performance delivered by the Colombo centre. We are geared up to ensure that we relentlessly pursue the agenda of delivering excellence in everything we do," said Kalum Katipearachchi, country director of Aviva Global Services Lanka (Pvt) Ltd.
"With the establishment of a financial and accounting centre of excellence owned and managed by a world class company, the benefits to the country include; the provision of professional employment, the investing in and the continuous development of skills and training for employment, as well as foreign revenue," he further stated.
-ends-
Press contacts:
Aviva
Anuja Agarwal
Head of Communication
Aviva Global Services, India and Sri Lanka
E-mail: anuja.agarwal@avivags.com
Telephone: +91 98220 91002
Sheranga Senanayake
Manager, Communication
Aviva Global Services, Lanka, Pvt Ltd
E-mail: sheranga.senanayake@avivags.com
Telephone: +94 77 392 5553
WNS
Smita Gaikwad
E-mail: smita.gaikwad@wnsgs.com
Telephone: + 91 98201 22336
Notes to the editor:
About Aviva
Aviva is the leading provider of life and pensions to Europe with substantial positions in other markets around the world, making it the world's fifth largest insurance group based on gross worldwide premiums at 31 December 2005. Aviva's principal business activities are long-term savings, fund management and general insurance, with worldwide total sales of £41.5 billion and assets under management of £364 billion at 31 December 2006.
Aviva Global Services (AGS) is the business process and IT outsourcing arm of Aviva plc. Its mission is to drive value for Aviva business units through offshore shared services by delivering excellent customer satisfaction more efficiently through its Built, Operate and Transfer (BOT) business model and outsourced operations.
About WNS
WNS is a leading provider of offshore business process outsourcing, or BPO, services. We provide comprehensive data, voice and analytical services that are underpinned by our expertise in our target industry sectors. We transfer the execution of the business processes of our clients, which are typically companies located in Europe and North America, to our delivery centres located primarily in India. We provide high quality execution of client processes, monitor these processes against multiple performance metrics, and seek to improve them on an ongoing basis.
WNS ADSs are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.wnsgs.com/.