PDF: 2962 pages, 5.2 MB - Bay Area Council Economic Institute

Global Reach
claims from the current carrier); and policy verification. Brokerages often create separate desks
for these activities, with entry-level employees performing such functions all day, typically by
phone. The work is tedious and turnover is high.
Patra began as a virtual company, working with a U.S. outsource firm based in Los Angeles,
Encore India. Patra acted as an interface, marketing specialized outsourced services to insurance
brokers throughout California. An onsite U.S. team would collect information about the customer’s
work processes, prepare standard forms and document templates, and create training
materials and procedure manuals. They would then go to Encore’s India center in Vizag
(Visakhapatnam), 200 miles north of Chennai in Andhra Pradesh, and work with the outsource
firm to train staff.
Encore was initially chosen in part based on price due to its location in a Tier 3 city. But Vizag
was also attractive for its scenic beauty on the coast, new roads and broadband fiber optic networks
under construction, proximity to three universities—two of which offered MBA programs—and
thus a large talent pool relative to the work available locally. These were important
factors in reducing attrition.
Patra (an Indian word that has evolved in meaning over centuries to mean leaf, parchment, legal
document and, finally, certificate) was additionally offering day work that was a draw for women
who needed to be home in the evenings. “There were no jobs like this before in this city,”
Easterlin says. “The competition created for this type of back office work has been huge. We’ve
only lost a couple of people leaving to take better jobs in another city.” Most attrition, he says,
has been due to arranged marriages, as wives move away to live with the groom’s family according
to tradition.
Most Indian recruits were qualified college graduates, often MBAs eager to learn about how financial
services are provided in the U.S. Staff were assigned to small teams, each specific to a particular
client. Supervision was both onsite and via phone and videoconference with the U.S. Contact with
U.S. clients and insurance companies was "invisible," via email and remotely accessing internal
networks to exchange and process information with no phone contact. Documents were formatted
as they would be in the U.S., on company letterheads and standard forms, and delivered via fax or
email. Patra offered 40%+ savings in operational cost, fewer errors, 24-hour service, and printing
and mailing of documents from the U.S.
Over time, Easterlin and Simpson felt they could improve both efficiency and long-term loyalty
by managing the Vizag workforce themselves. In mid-2007, Patra bought out the contracts of
the approximately 50 people employed by Encore and set up an Indian entity, Patra (India) BPO
Services, as its own captive center. Patra took control of direct management and work hours,
brought employees to the U.S. for additional training, introduced pay incentives, redesigned
workspace to emphasize client team collaboration, and encouraged employee input.
In the first year after it opened the new center, Patra’s client list grew to 25 and its workforce
expanded to more than 125, bucking the trend among small captive centers to shrink or close.
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