Aviva to transfer 5,000 BPO staff to offshore arm

Aviva, UK's largest insurance company, is transferring over 5,000 third party BPO vendor staff to its offshore division, Aviva Global Services, over the next year.

"Offshoring has 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," said a company statement issued in Bangalore on Tuesday.

Aviva has built the offshore BPO roles in partnership with three vendor partners -- EXL, WNS and 24/7 Customer.

"This is but one transaction in our strong relationship with our three BPO partners. The main transition is expected to be seamless and transparent to the UK business units, our employees as also to the

end customers," AGS Chairman John Ainley was quoted as saying.

Currently, Aviva has operations in Noida, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai in India and Colombo in Sri Lanka.

In sequence, the transfers will cover Bangalore, Colombo and Pune with the Aviva -- 24/7 customer facility in Bangalore being the first to be fully transferred by January 1, 2007, it was stated.

The remaining transfers will be completed by January 1, 2008 in partnership with WNS and NCOP, WNS Colombo and Ntrance, created specifically for the purpose of transfer, by EXL and WNS, respectively, Aviva said.

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