Aegis continue Malaysian expansion ahead of Australia
According to Sandip Sen, Global CEO of Aegis BPO, Australia’s economy is in “a bit of a crisis” and Malaysia is providing an alternative destination as the “Philippines are getting a little saturated and clients need another location”.
Aegis are now planning to open a third centre in Malaysia with an investment of about $4-5 M and they expect to be providing employment to 5,000 staff in the next two years.
One of the benefits of Malaysia Mr Sen claims is that “We are able to get people with multi-language skills in Malaysia, making it the global hub for all Asian languages”.
It seems Malaysia’s growth is coming at the expense of their Australian operations.
Back in 2014 the then Premier of Victoria, Dr. Denis Napthine, in conjunction with Global CEO of Aegis, Mr Sandip Sen and CEO of Aegis Australia Anthony Seaegg announced a $4m investment to establish Victoria as its “Asia-Pacific hub for business process outsourcing” that will create 200 news jobs in 2015 and an additional 350 jobs in 2016.
“Melbourne’s language capability, high-quality educational institutions and diverse skill base provides Aegis with the confidence to be able to deliver the high-end services our clients expect.
In just 5 days one of Aegis’s largest contracts with Origin Energy is due to cease and with it, approximately 120 jobs placing the future of their Werribee centre (south-west of Melbourne) at risk of closure.
On 15 January 2016, the Aegis’s head of operations and support Avik Choudhuri said Aegis will examine all options to ensure staff remain employed. “Our first approach will be to try and talk to different business houses to see if there was an opportunity out there to keep the centre open in an ongoing manner,” he told the ABC.
“Alternatively, we are also communicating with our employees to generate an expression of interest, via which we could possibly redeploy them to other job openings within the wider Aegis organisation.”
There is still no public word on the future of their Werribee centre or their ongoing commitment to their Australian operations.
Whilst in the short term Aegis seems focussed on growth in Malaysia, they have left the door open to return back to the Philippines after exiting the country as part of a Global sell-off to Teleperformance in 2014.
Mr Sen said they would “look at venturing into that country at an appropriate time” as “the Philippines is still a large market”.
Aegis is one of the largest BPO’s in the world with operations in 43 locations across 9 countries.
2020 Update: Aegis has now rebranded to Startek as part of a deal completed in 2018 with their Melbourne, Australia operations still continuing but under the new brand name.
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