In the analysis of the then nascent call centre industry in its June 2000 issue, Voice&Data termed Gurgaon as the emerging call center capital of India.

A year later, the situation looks quite different. Most of the new contact centers (yes, call centers have graduated) that are being announced, are coming up in Navi Mumbai. It all started with Global’s contact center in Mahape, followed by a few others like Tracmail. Today, the queue is long indeed. Intelenet, the TCS-HDFC JV, is setting up its contact centre in Navi Mumbai. So is Sitel India, the other JV of Tatas, with none other than Sitel, one of the top call centres in the US. West Teleservices, another big player from the States, is also setting up a centre there. So is Stream, yet another big name.

Does it mean that Navi Mumbai has wrested the honour from Gurgaon? Almost, but for a recent development. Convergys, the biggest call center company in the world, has chosen Gurgaon, says industry grapevine. If that is true—and sources say it is setting up a huge centre—the winner in this battle is not going to be decided soon. At this time, Navi Mumbai leads though.

However, there are finer prints.

"Look at the so-called battle a little differently," says the CEO of a contact center company based in Noida. "Instead of Gurgaon and Navi Mumbai, compare Mumbai and NCR (National Capital Region) and you will see NCR is way ahead, even now." To a great extent, he is right. Mumbai’s call center fraternity, a few exceptions like Transworks apart, is concentrated in Navi Mumbai. In NCR, it is distributed among Gurgaon, Noida, and Okhla. In fact, now the activity has split to even Sahibabad and Najafgarh, places not really known for business.

However, the fact is that in the last six months, Mumbai has attracted more contact center investment than Delhi. A winning factor for Mumbai is better connectivity, the most tangible quality differentiator for a contact center in India today. Not only is connectivity in Mumbai more reliable, it has become cheaper after VSNL’s rate cuts in IPLC rates for Mumbai and Cochin. No surprise, most new contact center announcements have come after the VSNL rate cut. Also, the power situation is much better compared to Gurgaon. Gurgaon is cheaper in terms of real estate, though.

Apart from these tangible infrastructural factors, there are softer issues too. In fact, the age old Delhi vs Mumbai debate has become hot again, in the wake of the contact center boom. The Delhi-backers say that being better spread (Noida is in east, Okhla in south and Gurgaon in south west), commuting for the CSRs is not much of a problem as the people in one geographic area usually work in a location nearer to them. In contrast, people who are in say, Powai, will have to travel two and a half hours to reach say Mahape. The Mumbai backers claim that the western metropolis is more cosmopolitan and professional than the capital, a trait that is a major plus point for voice call centers. In fact, one CEO of a Mumbai company also argued that Delhi is still not culturally comfortable with working late night.

Apart from this, it is also a question of concentrated (as in Mumbai) vs distributed (as in Delhi). Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, the companies can together lobby and prevail upon the government to enhance infrastructure and treat the area as a top priority. On the other hand, retaining people becomes that much more difficult. Take for example, an agent staying in West Delhi and working in Gurgaon. For a Rs 500/ Rs 1000 jump, she will not like to change her job to work in a contact centre in Noida.

Also, while Delhi and Mumbai may continue to fight, other places are emerging as serious contenders, not the least of which is Bangalore and Hyderabad. While Bangalore already has probably the maximum number of VC funded professionally set up companies (Talisma, Customerasset, 24/7, iseva, Qsuppport etc), Hyderabad is seeing a good deal of small business backed call centers that are the most professional in their category.

Also, as manpower shortage becomes a problem and a lot of multinational, multilocational call center companies set up their facilities in India, other places like Ahmedabad, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Indore and Bhuabaneswar. Ahmedbad and Chennai too us it come up. They already have a few. A couple of facilities have also been announced in Kolkata and Guwahati.

Remember, this business is very different from software. So, the workforce will be drawn from all regions. One rider. States which are more comfortable in English and whose people have neutral accents will see activities sooner - Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Orissa, to name a few.