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ranscosmos Inc., one of the major call center service providers in Japan, formally launched a joint venture in Indonesia on Thursday to exploit the growing call center market.

Transcosmos Inc., president Masataka Okuda said the joint venture, the company'€™s first business entity in Southeast Asia, was the realization of a partnership agreement signed by the company with PT Cyberindo Aditama (CBN) in November 2012.

Transcosmos and CBN own 50 percent stakes, respectively, in the joint venture.

He said with its large population and growing business activities, Indonesia was the right country for expanding its call center services. '€œSoutheast Asia is one of the few regions experiencing strong economic growth, and Indonesia is a strategic technology market for Transcosmos Inc.,'€ said Okuda.

Indonesia is the first country in Southeast Asia for Transcosmos'€™ expansion, having established business units in several other countries including China, South Korea and the United States.

In order to be more competitive, many Indonesian companies had outsourced their non-core activities, such as a call centers, to cut operating costs, he said. '€œWith this trend, we believe that call center services will grow rapidly in Indonesia,'€ CBN'€™s CEO, Dani Sumarsono, said.

Dani estimated that the call center market would grow by 25.7 percent to reach US$1.5 billion in 2018. At present, Indonesia'€™s call center industry had only 84 seats per 1 million people, far lower than in neighboring countries like the Philippines and Malaysia, where call center providers had 1,300 seats for 1 million people, said Dani.

For the initial step of its Indonesian expansion, Transcosmos is operating 200 seats. '€œBy the end of year, we expect to have 500 seats,'€ Dani said. The annual cost for one seat is $15,000, which covers all expenses for the server, computer and agent'€™s wage. Dani refused to reveal the amount of the company'€™s initial investment.

In five years'€™ time, Transcosmos expected to have 3,000 seats with 5000 agents, Dani said. Transcosmos Indonesia president director Hiroyoshi Hara said the company planned to expand their services from call centers to digital marketing and e-commerce in the future. Regarding the digital marketing, Hara said that the company had the latest voice analysis technology, which can detect the perfect method to approach clients and sell products.

As for the clients, Dani said the company would target small and medium enterprises (SMEs), clients of Transcosmos Inc. who had branch offices in Indonesia, and several companies belonging to the Salim Group, including Indofood, the world largest instant noodle producer. CBN is an information technology (IT) company that has run Internet service providers (ISPs) since 1995. It is also a member of the Salim Group, a group that owns a range of businesses, such as banking, consumer branded products and property. (nai)