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| The Financial Express, December 2, 2003 |
| Sanmar To Set Up BPO Unit For Group firms’ Accounting Ops |
| N Madhavan Chennai |
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The Rs 1,100-crore Sanmar group is in the process of setting up a business process outsourcing (BPO) unit for handling the accounting operations of all its companies. According to senior group officials, the BPO should be in place in a couple of months. |
| A captive BPO unit fits the bill for the Sanmar group for more than one reason. Firstly, it consists of about 18 companies. Of these, Chemplast Sanmar which has interests in chemicals, speciality chemicals, shipping and engineering is the flagship company and rest of the companies are either small or medium sized. Secondly, the accounting policy across the group is common and all of them have installed an ERP package from SAP. “Also the strength of the group is its systematic approach to business across group companies. We are now trying to capitalise on this,” they said. |
| Currently, 10-15 per cent of the 700-odd staff employed in the group handle accounts for each of the business units individually. The attempt is to identify a set of people who will maintain accounts for all the group companies. An exercise is on to put in place systems that will ensure error-free operations. Also the composition of the team, the skill sets they should have are being worked out. |
| Cost, they say, is not the only driving force in their move to centralise all the accounting operations in a BPO. The group also maintains that it has no immediate plans of utilising this BPO division to offer services to outside clients. The intention now is to focus on the core business and the immediate priority is to ensure that this BPO exercise clicks, officials said. |
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