Call2Connect: ITES AND BPO COMPANY
Call2Connect is an ITES and BPO company established by the seasoned innovator and serial entrepreneur, Mr. Anil Sinha. With his passion for creating something new out of the existing and his skill for taking calculated, meaningful risks, he made a name for himself in the banking sector. Credit Cards that come with an inbuilt revolving credit facility, are a gift to the banking sector. None other than Mr. Sinha’s initiatives made this possible in the banking industry in India. Being an inherent risk-taker, he led the way for Bank of Baroda, the bank he was then employed in, to become the first in India to launch the credit card namely ‘BOB Card’. BOB Card became an instant success for the merchant base as well as for the bank itself–but that took extraordinary efforts from Mr Sinha’s side being ahead of his times is what helped Mr Sinha create his own legacy.
A mind like that, combined with a zeal to work on, could not prevent Mr. Sinha from resigning from Bank of Baroda at the age of 44, even though by that age he had achieved everything there was to achieve in the banking sector to take the bigger challenge, even though risky. An innovator that he was, entrepreneurship was never very far away from his mind.
He had already been working with the idea of a revenue model based on “pay as you use” policy, that automated card transactions electronically through the wire using the Electronic Data Capture (EDC) machine, when he was approached by a major business house for any business ideas that he might have. His proposal was accepted instantly, but diving into the ever-shifting entrepreneurial field was a huge risk–more so for the fact that he would have to quit his secure, settled life in the public sector service industry. It was a major leap of faith that he made, with the support of his wife and her trust in his abilities. As a result, Transaction Technologies Pvt Ltd was founded on March 15th, 1996. It was later renamed as Venture Infotek Global. He went on to introduce several landmarks pertaining to technological fronts for the Indian Payment Industry over the years. He also reinstated several subsidiary companies under the parenthood of Venture InfoTeck. After writing several milestones to his name, from BOB Card to Venture Infotek, each more successful than the other, Mr Sinha established Call2Connect. His unparalleled success and experience meant there would be no shortage of investors for his enterprise, and Call2Connect proved this estimation true.
CALL 2 CONNECT: A SUCCESSFUL VENTURE
Call2Connect was inaugurated as a training institute for the call centre in December 2003, at Kadamkuan, Patna. The decision behind establishing a training institute in Bihar was a rather altruistic one on Mr Sinha’s part. He decided to launch Call2Connect in Patna to bring business and prosperity to the state. It was an attempt to generate much-needed employment opportunities for the youth in Patna, and it proved to be a vastly successful one. The decision was initially questioned by many, because of the detrimental state of law and order and economy in the state. Anil Sinha started Call2Connect to train individuals at his institution, and they were free to look for call Centre jobs elsewhere after their training. They were, however, guaranteed a job at the Delhi branch of Call2Connect after finishing their training. He established a branch at Delhi, after Patna, to be able to fulfil this promise, where he secured his first client. The Patna centre was eventually converted into a full-fledged call centre, to generate employment in Bihar itself. This move led to him being awarded with a well-deserved award of ‘Icons & Change Agents of Bihar’ in 2009.
Call2Connect is now a leading Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) and BPO company. It offers world-class customer support solutions, back-office & consultancy services through a network of over fifteen hundred employees across offices in Mumbai, Patna, Noida (Delhi), Varanasi and Bangalore. They deliver the entire spectrum of business process management (BPM) services across all their centers, including:
In addition, they also offer e-payment / governance consulting services. Combining operational excellence with deep domain expertise, Call2Connect has brought business value to more than seventy-five clients across key industry verticals including Telecom, Banking & Financial Services, Healthcare, Lifestyle, Insurance, Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment, Retail, Travel & Leisure, State Governments & PSUs, Automobile, Petroleum, Web Portals, Transaction Processing, Food & Beverage, Consumer Durables and more. Established in June 2003, Call2Connect is now a fully owned subsidiary of Route Mobile Limited, a global leader in mobile solutions headquartered in Mumbai, India. Call2Connect was a departure from Mr Sinha’s original area of expertise: the payment sector, where he had worked as an employee for nineteen years and an entrepreneur by establishing Venture InfoTek, the first payment processing company in India. Mr Sinha, while managing the Call2Connect affairs as Chairman and Managing Director, also acted as a domain consultant for several companies active in the Payment industry sector like A Little World, iSMART, Waseela Equity Dubai, In-Solutions, Mint Canada, MCHQ, etc, on a part-time basis.
VENTURE INFO TEK: ANOTHER FEATHER IN THE CAP
Anil Sinha set up Venture InfoTek in March 1996, and through it he introduced offsite outsourcing in the domestic banking circle in the country. This new endeavor was a monumental step for the merchants as well as for the banks. No company in India had till then devised a path such as that of Venture InfoTek. A technologically superior company than any of its time, Venture Info- tek used the internet, WAP, chip cards, and data management to complete financial transactions. The company automated the countertop of merchants by installing EDC machines to accept Payment Cards and carry the transactions to Visa, Mastercard and American Express authorization hubs located in the US or in Australia, get the transactions approved over the wire within five seconds. It was quite a task to gather up human resources with high potential as well, and his team consisted of twenty members, to begin with. His unfailing determination worked wonders in a very short time, however. By October 1997, he had successfully managed to get aboard all nine banks who were in the credit card business in India. Venture Infotek soon grew into an eight-hundred strong organization with branches in nine metropolitan cities and Goa. With IBM Services and VISA International as partners, they had a presence in twenty-four cities and the international market, all within fifteen months of inception.
After these months of dedicated hard work, his success story wrote itself. Equifax Corporation, an American processing company, offered a Joint Venture deal to Venture Infotek. Thus Equifax Venture Infotek Ltd was born, with its headquarters at Clearwater, Tampa, USA. Mr Sinha became the Managing Director of the company through this partnership. This gave him experience in M&A, and exposure to several investors, which proved to be an asset for his future endeavors.
BOB CARD: INNOVATION IN BANKING INDUSTRY
An innovative streak showed itself even in Mr Sinha’s term as a bank employee. Not many can boast of bringing to life revolutionary changes in the banking industry. His first assignment was in Patna where he had managed to set up an award-winning Branch from scratch with the highest deposit mobilization for a new branch in the history of Bank Of Baroda. The resounding success and unparalleled history of continuous highest achievement awards compelled the Chairman to take notice to visit him and offer him a position at Mumbai in the newly set up card department. Hailing from Patna, Bihar, he faced regionalism and discrimination when he first moved to Mumbai, but that didn’t stop him from doing his very best and ultimately proving himself to his peers and seniors alike. He kept working on his personal research studying the methods of operation in the department. When his suggestions for improvement were finally paid heed to, they turned out to be a major game-changer for the bank. Mr. Sinha was then appointed to restructure and automate the organization and revamp all the processes and departments including Sales, Marketing, Backend, etc. Radical steps like decentralization of the sales setup for card division of Bank of Baroda, automation of the processes, the establishment of 24X7 Help Desk, and so on. These steps were unknown to other organizations in those times— His intervention proved to be immensely fruitful. In a time when there was only a marginal presence of VISA or Mastercard in India, that too without any automated network or widespread acceptance, Mr Sinha introduced the facility of automated Credit Cards with an inbuilt credit facility to the banking sector of India. He was made the Executive Vice President of BOB Cards in 1994 because of his phenomenal foresight and aptitude.
Within six to eight months of him taking over, the base successfully grew from three thousand cards and nine hundred merchants to two lakh credit card holders and twenty-two thousand merchants, thereby making BOB Card the market leader. For the first time, an Indian Credit Card was giving international Bank cards a run for their money.
He also for the first time in the Banking history of India secured RBI permission for setting up of a separate subsidiary of a Bank created for a specific purpose. Namely Bobcards Ltd. He launched several innovative products under this umbrella for the first time in India. Mr Sinha practically established the BOB Card division and then the subsidiary company as one would a company, and that gave him the experience and skill which he later weaved into his startups. His foray into the credit card business not only had a tremendous impact on the payment sector, but it also foreshadowed his successful future as an entrepreneur. Mr Sinha has written a thesis on digital payment industry and also bagged an award from Indian Bank Association under the Cooverji Hormusji Bhabha Research Scholarship. Alongside this, he also received an award on the first documents works on the potential of the card industry in India. “If you are in a job; attempt to take over all responsibilities of your boss, make him reliant on you and you will keep earning quick promotions.
“If you are an entrepreneur, become a reliable consultant for your customer rather than a seller.” Mr Sinha’s success mantra teaches us to always strive to be the best and put in more energy and effort into our work. Mr Sinha has been an avid experimenter all his life. What is astonishing to note is that as an individual who started out as a gold medalist from Patna Science College in Zoology, Mr Sinha gained an unparalleled success in every venture he delved into banking, entrepreneurship, and as a consultant for several companies. He was invited to share his experience and knowledge at the RBI Apex Training College, BOB Training College, Bank of India Training College, Dena Bank Training College, National Institute Bank Management (NIBM), National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), Visa Advisory Forums and several other independent seminars on the Payment Industry. Mr Sinha’s presence and influence in the payment industry is inimitable. He is considered among the foremost authorities and subject matter experts in the relevant field. The amount of respect and credibility earned by him is priceless. Numerous people look up to him with sheer reverence and consider him their lifelong mentor. His achievements have been recorded on a number of multimedia platforms, and he stands out as one of the most versatile and successful entrepreneurs of the country.
