Nirmal D. Menon

Mumbai , Jan. 4

ENTERTAINMENT dotcoms have for sure started chalking out opportunities around film releases lined up this year. However, this portal is signing on the dotted lines of sectors such as telecommunications and business process outsourcing (BPO).

Mumbai-based Virtual Marketing India Pvt Ltd, the owner of entertainment marketing portal IndiaFM and promotional marketing portal Hungama.com, is eyeing emerging opportunities in telecommunications and BPO companies.

"We are in the process of signing up a strategic deal with Airtel for its `Airtel Live' property. This would include identifying new properties and exploiting them," Mr Saleem Mobhani, Co-Founder, IndiaFM told Business Line. Hungama.com is currently the digital agency of telecom major Airtel. The company had premiered Arindham Chaudhari's Rok Sako To Rok Lo in full to Airtel users last month in response to competitor Hutchison Essars' Orange TV launch in October.

While Orange TV promised multi-channel TV-on-mobile service using its EDGE-enabled network, Hungama took a leaf out of the same strategy and premiered the Arindham Chaudhari movie free of cost.

The result was that 1,000 Airtel subscribers with EDGE-enabled phones tuned into the film. The campaign was cost-effective and was a fitting reply to competitors' moves, and enhanced the brand loyalty of Airtel consumers among select audiences, Mr Mobhani pointed out.

The company is also in talks with key BPO players to address their biggest challenge of employee attrition. "We would soon sign up with key players of the BPO industry to address their HR challenge," said Mr Mobhani.

The company is planning to allay the threat of employee attrition by creating an interface between call centre employees and their management. The interface will attempt to improve the employee relationship by facilitating their social needs, Mr Mobhani said.

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