By Francis Kokutse

Accra, Aug 12 IANS) Tech Mahindra, a leading Indian IT outsourcing company with global footprints, has started customer care services in seven African countries as a partner of telecom giant Bharti Airtel.

"We see Africa as a growing developing continent and opportunities really do exist in Africa," Rahul Sabharwal, Tech Mahindra's vice president for Africa, told IANS here.

"The continent has become of strategic importance to us because of the growth that we see and Tech Mahindra wants to be part of the continent's development process," he said.

Sabharwal added that the decision to expand operations in Africa was taken after the company had partnered leading telecom operators including MTN and Multilinks in Nigeria over a two-year period.

The countries in which Tech Mahindra will provide customer care services for Bharti Airtel, the telecom giant with operations in 16 African countries, includes the Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Malawi and Nigeria.

Since February, the company had been operating a contact centre and a back office for Airtel in Ghana.

"Tech Mahindra's entry into the country is likely to put a lot of focus on Ghana and this would lead to generating more employment for the people," Pushkar Gokhale, Tech Mahindra's country head, told IANS.

"We started with 100 people when we opened, but after six months we have increased the number to 300," he added.

Earlier this year, in a statement to mark the company's two years of operations in Nigeria, Sujit Baksi, president for corporate affairs and business service group, said that Tech Mahindra has recruited over 1,000 local employees in Nigeria. "It is our strategy to nurture local talent for effectively executing our BPO operations," he said.

He said the company had also put into operation a programme to reduce its expatriate headcount over a period of two years in Nigeria in order to develop the workforce locally to run the operations.

"With its telecom domain expertise and global experience over two decades, Tech Mahindra is committed to offering the best in the industry services to telecom operators leading to enhanced experience for the end consumers in Nigeria and the Africa continent as whole," said Krishna Gopal, vice president, sales and global alliances.