Techgoss exclusive: MakeMyTrip bids goodbye to Aegis
By Rahul

They are two of the most highly regarded companies in their niche.  Aegis BPO has 39,000 employees based in 42 delivery centers and looking after 135 clients.  Head quartered in Mumbai,  Aegis has offices and call centres in India, Philippines, US, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Australia, Kenya and South Africa.

MakeMyTrip is one the giants of the Indian travel sector.  Founded in 2000 to cater to the US-India travel market, this online Travel Company launched its Indian operations in 2005.  The MakeMyTrip website says its share of the Indian travel market extends to more than 50 percent of all online sales.  It is on track to achieve sales of Rs. 2500 crore for the financial year ending March 2010.  CNBC Awaaz declared it as the Best Travel Website for 2008-09.  Last year, it was selected to the Great Places to Work list.

Now a source within Aegis tells us its relationship with MakeMyTrip lasted only a few months.  It all started when MakeMyTrip, Gurgaon outsourced one of their processes to Aegis BPO in late 2009.   Aegis started recruiting for the process in the second half of November, 2009.

Aegis hired a batch of 20 Advisors/Agents for this MakeMyTrip process.  Many of these 20 Advisors were freshers.  Aegis assigned this coveted process to Rohan who was standing AM, Quality.  Rohan was also given an Operational role.  A new Team Manager Akshay was hired just days before the training for the process began.  MakeMyTrip sent Meenu Gandhi from Gurgaon to Pune to train the new Aegis agents in the travel processes and procedures. MakeMyTrip also sent their Senior Advisor, Sales, Deep Hans to the Aegis offices in Pune.

After early hiccups, Deep and Akshay were credited with bringing the process on track and putting it on the growth path.  But with staff changes and some personal issues, things start going downhill. Like in other BPO’s, there were teething issues. 4 Advisors refused to turn up for work.  Soon, the 18 seater process was downsized to 6 seats.

Within months, the process was wound up and Aegis and MakeMyTrip went their separate ways.  No public statement or explanation was ever given about the breakup.