RR Donnelley expands BPO facility in Colombo

The world’s global provider of integrated solutions and Sri Lanka’s third largest provider of integrated solutions, Fortune 500 company RR Donnelley opened its new global outsourcing facility at the World Trade Centre in Colombo earlier this week, the latest addition to its global RR Donnelley community, in order to facilitate its growth in the country’s post-war economy.

By Cassandra Mascarenhas

The company also has further plans for expansion in the country by increasing its 750 strong workforce in Sri Lanka by 35%, to 1,000 employees by the end of this year, affirmed RR Donnelley’s Vice President and Head of Human Resources in Asia Meena Sinha.

Considered to be the country’s oldest BPO operator since commencing operations in Sri Lanka in 1983, this is its third facility in the country, with yet another located in the World Trade Centre itself.

Declaring a group turnover of $10 billion last year, RR Donnelley’s global outsourcing service offering was also ranked among the best five companies for legal support services, best 10 leaders for document management services, best 20 companies for financial services (insurance) and the best 20 companies for financial management services in 2011’s Global Outsourcing 100.

“New client engagements along with the growth of existing client relationships have driven the need for this expansion. We are excited about our growth in Colombo and look forward to building on our capabilities,” said the Managing Director and Head of RR Donnelley’s Global Outsourcing platform in Asia Kiran Shankar.

“We have added two new state-of-the-art facilities in India and more recently, acquired space for our second facility in Manila, Philippines. This new facility, along with our existing centres in Asia, gives us a larger network, enabling seamless delivery of work on a 24 hour basis.”

It was revealed that Colombo is an attractive location for RR Donnelley’s expansion because of its access to a highly skilled talent pool. Employing 58,000 people worldwide, the company has a workforce of 6,500 countries within Sri Lanka, India and the Philippines collectively.

“The IT/BPO sector is a priority growth sector for RR Donnelley and this latest addition to our global community, a long-awaited moment, reflects it. Operations in Colombo currently mainly focus on the US and UK markets and with the end of the conflict we see great potential for growth in Sri Lanka,” stated the Senior Vice President and Head of RR Donnelley’s operations in Sri Lanka and Trivandrum Devapriya Perera.

“The market for outsourcing is so huge and we have roughly exploited only about 25 per cent of the world market, which is currently worth about 100 billion, of which 60 to 70 billion comes from India.”

The Chief Guest at the event, the Chargé d’Affaires of the US Embassy in Sri Lanka Valerie Fowler, addressing the gathering at the inauguration of the facility, said that she was excited to see the escalating growth in Sri Lanka and added that she looks forward to seeing further expansions and operations by American companies in Sri Lanka.

RR Donnelley’s global outsourcing business in Asia provides judgement-based professional support and industry-focused solutions, including legal support, financial management, premedia, transaction processing and real estate services. Their clients include Fortune 1000 companies, professional service organisations and financial services firms across Europe and the United States.