Aditya Birla Minacs, the outsourcing arm of the Aditya Birla Group, plans to add

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at least 4,500 seats globally by the end of the fiscal 2010-11, with maximum seats going to the American region.

The company is now gung-ho about the growth potential of the north American region and the prospects in future. After clients such as General Motors adjusted their businesses during the recession period, which affected Minacs’ revenues in the negative, the company believes that things are looking up.

Deepak J Patel, chief executive officer of Minacs, told Financial Chronicle that North America is the growth area and the focus would continue to be there. “We have around 6,000 seats in America and the potential is for 3,000 more seats, which we plan to add by the end of the next fiscal year,” he said.

Financial Chronicle reported on April 29, 2009 that Minacs had shut down three BPO units in Canada – Pickering, Chatham and Saskatoon – and shifted around 20 per cent of the 1,200 jobs to India to rationalise cost, while others were absorbed in remaining units. At present, the company has around 12,500 seats and has other growth areas under its purview, such as the Philippines, Jamaica and India.

Patel said the company plans to fill around 450 seats in Philippines by the end of April, and is in talks with some new clients to enter other cities in the country. “Besides, we are planning to add at least 200 new seats in Jamaica, and include to our portfolio at least three tier-II cities in India. The talks with our clients are on and we cannot disclose their names as of now,” Patel said.

The work would largely entail banking, telecommunications and financial services, he said.

The official said that Minacs plans to connect the whole of India through

the hub-and-spoke model, where the large centres would be the hub and rural centres would be the spokes. “We plan to have at least 150-200 rural centres, which would work in the local languages and connect to the larger hubs as a part of the delivery model."