Aegis ‘inundated’ with CVs before recruitment process begins

BUSINESS outsourcing giant Aegis has received more than 300 applications for jobs at its new Manchester contact centre, without even advertising any roles.

The company, which has announced it is to create more than 600 jobs at the centre, expects to officially start the recruitment process next month.

It aims to fill close to 300 jobs by the end of January 2012. The second Phase of filling another 300 posts will begin from mid-2012.

Stephen Crew has been taken on as the new vice president for Aegis’ UK operations, based at City Tower in Manchester. He was previously UK operations director at rival firm Teleperformance.

“We have been inundated with CVs before the mainstream recruitment process has even started. A lot of it has been through word of mouth and social media. We haven’ even needed to advertise for positions,” said Crew.

Dianne Murray, newly appointed head of human resources, will be running the recruitment process. She previously worked at Vertex.

Manchester will be the company’s only UK location, but it is also looking to set up bases within other European countries including Germany, France, Spain, and the Nordic bloc, as part of a Europe-wide expansion programme over the next two years.

The expansion comes on the back of companies wanting to improve their customer service, in an increasingly competitive environment.

Sudhir Agarwal, president of M&A and strategic initiatives for their group, said: “Seven or eight years ago lots of jobs went overseas when people looked purely at the cost paradigm. But now companies have realised the future is for them to manage their customers better and give them superior service.

“Companies are understanding that the way to grow is to focus on what they do best  – their product – and often outsource other parts of the business. But a company cannot grow only by cutting costs.”

He added that it was still right to offshore certain jobs and that he did not envisage all those jobs that had been outsourced abroad to return to UK shores.

But roles where a company is in direct contact with the customer will increasingly return to their native countries, with a cultural connection between the customer and operator being crucial to customer satisfaction, he said.

Mr Agaewal also said that although big name client wins were yet to be announced for the Manchester contact centre, he did expect key clients to include a bank, telecoms company and utility business.

“Banks and utility companies, for example, would keep their back office offshore, but would bring key customer contact relationships back to the UK,” he said.

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