FACT FILE CEO Atul Kunwar  (MD-global outsourcing operations) POSITIONING Broad-based BPO company STARTED IN Jun-05 OWNERSHIP  eFunds Corporation REVENUE (2002-03) $37  million NO OF PEOPLE 3,210 CORPORATE ADDRESS Infinity Mind Space, Raheja Commercial Complex, New Link Road, Malad (West), Mumbai-400064 WEBSITE www.efunds.com  NO. OF CLIENTS 11 QUALITY Created three centers of excellence. More are ongoing Six Sigma implementation underway Smartworks ongoing LOCATION FACILITIES: 7 (Mumbai–2, Chennai–2, Gurgaon–1, Woodbury, US–1, Dallas, US–1) SALES & MARKETING: Scottsdale, US; Cheshire, UK

Featuring Efunds in this list is a paradigm shift in how India-centric has been defined so far. Yes, the company conforms to our criterion of 60 percent or more operations in India. That is the basic reason why it has been featured.

However, what is also significant about the company is its outsourcing division is headquartered in Mumbai. So India is not just another facility for the company, it is the decision-making center as far as outsourcing as a business is concerned.

Starting as a small captive center for its parent—$ 543 million Scottsdale, Arizona-based eFunds, an electronic funds transfer (EFT) solutions company—the company quickly realized the India advantage and turned that into a multi-million dollar, India-centric business.

Today, the Mumbai head quarters of the global outsourcing business of the company is headed by an Indian MD, who had decided early in his career that he would like to be based in India. The outsourcing operations today is several times bigger than its captive operations in India.

One problem for us was that the company did not share much of the financial figures for 2002-03, though it was prompt enough to cooperate on sharing other details. Based on the manpower, type of work and the revenue that it has started reporting from this year, bpOrbit estimated the revenue to be $37 million, thus catapulting it to the no. 3 position in our ranking.

Unlike many other companies eFunds does serve a number of verticals—traditional strength finance, retail, manufacturing, consulting—and number of different types of processes—customer service, back-office processing, telemarketing, collections, HR. The company even runs a dedicated offshore center for West Teleservices, a top 10 call-center company in the US.

This is probably the only such partnership that has withstood the test of time. The company also does collection for RMA, a major account receivable management company in the US. American Express is another major client for which the company does transaction processing, brokerage, credit cards, reconciliation and the likes. In fact, it claims to be the only debit bureau in the world.

Efunds got into some negative press when it moved some work back to New Jersey in the US sometime back. It continues to cater to government services for mainly EFT and Risk Management solutions.

However, the magnitude was negligible and eFunds continues to grow in India. Its exposure to government makes it susceptible on that front. Its large telemarketing—entirely US-targeted—also raises the risk for the company, considering the FTC DNC regulations.

EFunds has also concentrated hard on maintaining quality and unlike many other players this extends to its infrastructure too. Therefore, it has tied up with a number of best-of-the-breed partners for a proper telemarketing software (in the post-DNC era) in addition to standard outbound dialer and monitoring equipments.

It already has five facilities and the only company other than Spectramind to have facilities in North, South, and West.

The company is looking for a new phase of growth now that will take it even further. It remains to be seen whether it follows the WNS model of getting independent.