New Delhi: After acquiring three companies this year, global major in outbound call centre solutions Concerto Software, Inc on Sunday (Aug 28, 2004) said it was looking at acquisitions in India while eyeing over 10 per cent of the country's inbound call system market.

"Concerto is highly optimistic about the potential in India, especially in the inbound call centre system space. We expect to corner at least 10 per cent during 2004-05," Concerto Software vice-president (Asia Pacific) Pramod Ratwani said in New Delhi.

The company was also keen to acquire an Indian firm with "complimentary solutions" to help it ramp up operations.

"Even though we are in the process of integrating operations of the three newly acquired companies with Concerto, we are very much open to take forward our M&A operations and especially in India," he said.

Concerto has since early 2004 acquired three companies globally - Melita International, CentreForce Technology and Positive Software Systems.

He said the company's first R&D Centre outside the US would be set up in Bangalore by October this year with an investment of $five million. Ratwani added Concerto would hire 100 professionals for the centre in the next 12 months and double its headcount the next year.

"India being our largest market outside the US demands significant presence. The R&D Centre in Bangalore would cater to the entire Asia-Pacific market," he said. Concerto's revenues from India contributes over 40 per cent of its income from Asia-Pacific, which is 20 per cent its global product revenue, Ratwani said.

The company currently has 75 clients in India, covering over 11,000 call centre seats. Concerto holds nearly 67 per cent of the market share for outbound call centre systems in India and was awarded the Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership Award 2003 last week.

According to Frost & Sullivan, India is the fastest growing market for contact centre systems in the Asia Pacific region, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 19.5%.

"We have focused on India as the key market for quite some time and have seen tremendous growth thus far, with more to come," Ratwani said.

Concerto customers include Wipro Spectramind, Essar, Teletech India, Allserve, Global Telesystem, HCL Eserve, Daksh eServices, Globalvantedge, NIIT Smartserve, Colwell & Salmon, ICICI One Source, Hinduja, Transworks, Sanchez Capital, Zenta, Respondez, Prolease, and Infowavz, Keane Worldzen among others.

Besides India, the US-based company is also bullish on China and setting up a joint venture in the country. "China is another major emerging market, especially with the opening up of its banking and financial sectors," Ratwani said.