Sykes, an outsourcing and consulting solutions provider to technology, finance and communications industries, will increase its India presence in the next 18 months.

After reaching a consolidation stage in Philippines, where it employs 6,000 people, Sykes India will ramp up to nearly 1,500 people within the next 18 months.

Currently, the centre has 380 seats and employs 450 people. The Indian operations began in August 2002 when it handled only in-bound calls for four customers.

Sykes was the first BPO company to enter the Philippines four years ago. The company employs 5,000 people in Manila and has also entered Cebu (Philippines) where it is currently 1,000-strong. After this huge ramp up in Philippines, it in now India's turn to get a share of the growing business.

 "Sykes has built in a huge amount of redundancy to its clients with 40 delivery centres across the world. Most of these centres, except in the Philippines, employ in the range of 1,000 people per centre. Our Indian operation has reached a stage where it is ready to take off. We will first scale up to nearly 1,500 people in the next 18 months before we think of another delivery centre here," K G Mohan, call centre director, Sykes Enterprises (India) said.

Mohan did not reveal details on the investments that Sykes has made so far. However, its plans to ramp up are not only because its existing clients are growing, but also because of new clients coming on board. The India centre is expecting its fifth account to come on board in November, this year.

"By the time we ramp up to nearly 1,500 people, we expect an additional 2-3 new accounts. Since some of our worldwide clients are also entering India, we continue to be their natural preference for call support operations," Mohan said.

The preference of its clients to go offshore is evident from the company's results for second quarter of the fiscal ended June 2004. Revenues generated from the company's clients in the Americas totalled $68.2 million or 60.1 per cent of total revenues.

This compared with revenues of $79.9 million or 67.2 per cent of total revenues during the corresponding period last year.

The decline primarily reflected the continued client-migration of call volumes from the US to Sykes' other offshore locations and hence resulting in mix-shift in revenues from the US to offshore, which began in late 2003.

According to Sykes, each offshore seat generates roughly half the dollar equivalent of a US seat.