Wipro Spectramind a business process outsourcing company, is in talks with eTelecare, a Philippine based call center company. If these talks are successful this will be the first acquisition of a foreign call center by an Indian company.Spectramind, a 100% subsidiary of software major Wipro,is interested in the acquisition in order to derisk its business from a customer perspective, especially from geo-political tensions in India.“Wipro Spectramind is constantly evaluating locational options that will enhance the company’s ability to offer increased value to its customers.

As and when a decision is made in this regard, it will be announced publicly,” a Wipro technologies spokesperson said.eTelecare has been in the sights of several Indian BPO companies, including Delhi based Daksh as has been reported by the Economic Times earlier.Global companies outsourcing business to India are worried about outsourcing their mission critical operations to one country. IT services company have tried to derisk their operations by setting up disaster recovery centers and in some case small development centers abroad.According to industry observers, some customers are insisting on a global delivery model with multiple call centers in India, supported by at least one or two call centers outside the country.

Philippine based eTelecare started with 20 seats in September 2000. It has now grown to a workforce of more than 1,000 customer sales agents. The company has around 11 customers.Raman Roy Spectramind’s CEO has gone on record that it was looking at setting up an offshore Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) centre in one of the Asia-Pacific countries. “We are looking at some offshore offices within the Asia-Pacific ,” he said.