Concerto Software, a Nasdaq-listed global provider of contact centre solutions, is witnessing exceptional growth of its Indian business for dual reasons.

One, the Indian contact centre business is booming and two, the company is finding India with its skills a good base for technical support of its entire Asian business.

In 2002, 30 per cent of Concerto's Asia Pacific revenue came from India and this is likely to be repeated in the current year. India provides the largest volume of business for Concerto in Asia.

The future provides both a challenge and an opportunity for the Indian business.

The challenge is that the company has set up a joint venture in China and a subsidiary in Korea. The domestic call centre business in these two countries is booming with their huge cellular phone services.

Plus, with China joining the World Trade Organisation and having to open up its financial sector, that is likely to be fresh source of business for a technology provider like Concerto.

The Indian opportunity arises out of three streams, explains Pramod Ratwani, vice-president for Asia Pacific and the Middle East. One is India being the technical hub for the company for Asia.

Recently the company's Indian team has deployed the solution for GE Capital's call centre in Thailand and Citibank and GE call centres in Indonesia.

There is a bit of historical continuity as well as going forward here. Davox, whose merger with CELLIT in 2002 created Concerto, provided the solution to GE when it set up its first call center in India.

Since then Concerto has been discovering the India potential. An Indian subsidiary was set up in 2001 in New Delhi and now a second office is being set up in Bangalore.

Of the 40 staff in India a 30 man a help desk for the company. It first started taking Asian calls and was found to be so successful that it has now started taking weekend calls from North America.

Two, the company is finding it expedient to support and ramp up its Middle East operations which also have a good potential from India. This is because many of the professional people in the region are from India.

But the third and the most promising boost for Indian business in the longer term can come from within India itself.

"Our going forward strategy in India is the domestic market," says Ratwani. While this is partly dependent on domestic demand picking up the way it is in China and Korea, in the immediate term Concerto is laying store by its Ensemble Pro, a single technical solution for providing end to end multiple call centre services.

The aim is to capture the business that can come from SMEs who need self-service call centres to aid their own businesses.