To triple its turnover by 2014, AlmavivA inaugurates a mergers & acquisitions policy.  

 

The Company expects to make investments totaling 100 million reais to further expand its share of the Brazilian market, the second largest.  

 

The Italian-based owners of AlmavivA, a contact center company sharing the Brazilian market, worth 9 billion, with rivals Atento (a Telefonica Group company), Contax (owned by Oi) and Tivit (owned by the Apax investment fund), have ambitious plans for developing their operations in this country.  

 

The objective is to triple their turnover by 2014, which means achieving a turnover of 750 million reais and leaping from seventh to the third place in the ranking of the major industry players in Brazil.  

 

In 2008, AlmavivA recorded a turnover of 50 million and ranked thirtieth.  

 

This business expansion will not be achieved solely through internal development. Giulio Salomone, the President of the Brazilian concern, tells us that AlmavivA’s growth might take place through the merger and acquisition of call center and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) providers, in regions of the country where the company is not yet physically present.  

 

“The contact center market is growing by double-figure rates every year in the country and is a huge development opportunity in the North-East and Goias regions” says Mr. Salomone, who arrived in Brazil three years ago, after having held the office of Fiat President in the UK.  

 

This change of country and industry sector, he explains, is all down to the great opportunities Brazil has to offer. “The Brazilian market features an enormous potential for enterprises offering technology and services, which can reduce customer response time and increase customer satisfaction. This is precisely the difference we are offering.”  

 

 

AlmavivA has planned to invest 100 million reais in the country over the next three years, which can be used to expand the company’s business through both internal development and mergers & acquisitions.  

 

Brazil is the second most important market for AlmavivA, after Italy, and accounts for 2 billion of the total turnover of 2.5 billion reais. The company also has operations in China and Tunisia.   AlmavivA arrived in Brazil in 2006. Since then, it has invested 70 million reais in the country, of which 30 million over this last year alone.  

 

AlmavivA will end 2011 with a turnover of 250 million reais, up by 25% year on year.   

 

According to Mr. Salomone a number of great milestones were achieved this year. For one, the company inaugurated its new administrative headquarters in the Italia Building in Sao Paolo, it also opened a new recruitment and training center in the city and invested in a new operations unit at Juiz de Fora, in the region of Minas Gerais. The company now employs 12,000 people between Sao Paolo and Minas Gerais.  

 

Management model  

 

This year, AlmavivA also launched its new contact center management model, called Unique Excellence, developed based on the models implemented in European countries and which promises to make the difference in 2012.  

 

The model is based on the application of costs at the first call resolution and not by workstation, call or call time, which are widespread in Brazil. “We train our operatives to offer a customized service, to ensure that a question is resolved at the first call levels.” In practical terms, this means that the customer pays at the end of the call, excluding recalls and transfers between areas.   Giulio Salomone, CEO of AlmavivA do Brasil, does not like his company to be defined simply as a contact center. He corrects us on this point and explains that it is a 3.0 contact center, which means that, besides providing conventional call response services it also offers IT and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) solutions.  

 

One of the company’s major projects for 2012 concerns the use of semantic technology – based on the meaning of words – applied to Internet search and monitoring services, which also includes applications like Facebook and Twitter. “The data, as well as words, symbols, images, sounds and videos, are collected, analyzed and circulated through the sectors concerned, such as marketing, control and aftersales, to offer our customers an immediate response”, Mr. Salomone explains.  

 

Another challenge for the coming year is the creation of avatars (virtual assistants) for various types of services. The CEO believes that the development of the social networks has created a new means, for companies, to approach and keep in touch with their customers. And AlmavivA can certainly take advantage of this.  

 

Last year Almawave arrived in Brazil. This company applies semantic technology to CRM and Business Intelligence solutions, with a view to expanding the range of services, and therefore the turnover, for its current 10 large customers and, of course, to find new customers.  

 

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