Hundreds of back office jobs from UK surveying firms could be outsourced to India.
Anuj Gupta, chief executive of outsourcing firm coreBPO, told EG he was talking to several of the top agents about outsourcing aspects of their client accounting and service management.
He said his aim was to outsource 20-50 jobs from at least half the top 15 UK surveying firms within the next two years. GVA Grimley, Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker and Colliers CRE are all said to have considered the move.
Gupta would not reveal the names of any potential clients. Grimley said that it would not outsource any facilities, but spokesman Kevin Marriott confirmed that outsourcing had been considered. “Any big firm should be aware of the ease with which one can offshore,” he said, but added: “We have looked at it and we didn’t think it was worth considering at the moment.”
Colliers’ head of asset and property management Jeremy Day confirmed that his company had been approached to outsource.
“Yes, we are approached regularly, and these approaches are always received open-mindedly,” he said.
“But as yet no proposition has overcome our view that it is critical that end-users are able to access our specialists directly, so offshoring is unlikely to work for us or our clients.”
Chris Phillips, managing director of Colliers Capital, is a non-executive director of coreBPO. CWHB denied it would outsource any facilities.
coreBPO – which was set up by Gupta two years ago, and employs 300 Indian workers at offices in New Delhi – promises to cut up to 50% of costs, saving each client business thousands of pounds a year.
It does outsourcing for CPM Asset Management, Scottish Power, Sainsbury’s Energy and Mount Street Holdings. Gupta is expected to announce the appointment of a major industry figure as an adviser in the next few weeks.
