DiData broadens call centre scope

By Nicola Mawson, Contributing journalist

Johannesburg, 21 Nov 2006

Dimension Data's customer contact centre solutions provider Merchants has signed a joint venture agreement with payment-services provider TSYS, to provide a range of managed services to financial institutions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The venture will combine Merchants' call centre capabilities with TSYS's managed services business unit. The deal, for an undisclosed amount, will benefit from both companies' experience in back-office, cross-selling and up-selling activities for financial institutions engaged in card issuing and merchant acquiring.

DiData CEO Brett Dawson recently said the company had revised its strategy, especially with regard to its UK operations. Merchants had moved out of the commodity call centre arena and was now concentrating on higher margin business, he said.

He said the company did not believe it could be competitive in the commodity call centre area and, as a result of the new strategy, DiData hoped to see improved revenue and margins from Merchants.

At its results presentation last week, the company indicated Europe was the only laggard in its geographical regions. It said it was taking steps to counter this. Africa accounted for 22% of revenue, Asia accounted for 15% and Europe dropped two percentage points to 23% of revenue.

Expansion pipeline

The new venture will be called TSYS Managed Services EMEA, and includes existing Merchants centres that comprise more than 200 seats in the UK and the Netherlands. It is expected to add future centres in other countries throughout Europe and in SA.

Merchants GM Adam Foster said both companies had been delivering managed services to clients for the past two years. "Extending this relationship to a formal partnership is testament to the success of the relationship, which has resulted in first-class service delivery for TSYS clients. The combined focus of both parties will continue to be the delivery of the highest quality managed services."

TSYS Managed Services group executive David Figgat said the agreement strengthened the firm's ability to deliver managed services with quality in Europe and the broader region. "Because of their excellent reputation and dedication to quality, Merchants is an ideal partner to join our global strategy of offering 'best-shoring' and 'right-shoring' choices to our clients."

TSYS established TSYS Managed Services in 2005, integrating the company's contact centres and customer-servicing operations of several subsidiaries and business units into a streamlined division.