Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

Patrick Casserly, chief executive of e-Services Group. - File

PATRICK CASSERLY'S e-Services Limited has recently acquired two large contracts with two North

American clients, which will expand his operations by 20 per cent over the next 12 months.

Casserly, who heads the largest call centre in the English speaking Caribbean, is now in active pursuit of additional floor space in Kingston to fit out the new contracts.

"It will add almost 1,000 employees over the course of the contract," Casserly told the Financial Gleaner midweek in a brief telephone interview about the expansion.

The contract will involve e-Services offering to the new clients inbound and technical services for three years.

He said the contracts meant that e-Services could achieve a target of 5,000 employees by the end of 2009.

Casserly declined to name the new clients saying it was confidential information based on the terms of the contract. No details on the value of the contracts were given.

"We started them now. We are in the early stage in rolling out and our only challenge now is space," explained Casserly of the expansion. "We are looking at Kingston and Portmore," he continued. E-Services operates from six buildings in Jamaica - two in Portmore, St Catherine, one in Kingston and three in Montego Bay.

Informatics centre

The Naggo Head, Portmore, e-Services' operation has a total capacity of 600 seats and only 100 are presently empty. Its Portmore Informatics centre located in the Portmore Town Centre has about 40 empty seats in a facility with a maximum capacity of 400 seats.

According to Casserly, the two new contracts will allow for very high seat utilisation as his clients will require a 24-hours-per-day, seven-days-per-week service.

He said, however, the 140 seats could accommodate 300 agents if two or three shifts are operated.

Client utilisation

"With the new clients you are looking at a client utilisation from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., then from 5 p.m. to midnight and from 12:30 a.m. back to the morning," said Casserly explaining the high use of infrastructure required.

When asked about the possible utilisation of the old Jamintel Building at the corner of Duke and East Street (formerly slated to house the new police headquarters), Casserly said he had given it brief consideration but had concerns in terms of transport of his staff because of the 24 hour operation.

Casserly's most recent set-up in Kingston was some 120,000 square feet of office space in the Towers on Dominica Drive in New Kingston.

Up to last year e-Services received 70,000 international calls per day into its call centres islandwide. It is not clear how many more calls these two new contracts will add to the company's total output.

susan.gordon@gleaner.com