An Australian company, with the name Syntel Pvt. Ltd. got registered on June 17, 2013. The "Founding Partner and Director at Syntel Pty Ltd" Amanjit Sahota writes by himself in his LinkedIn profile that he is since August 2014 Director of his own company, makes the company already very suspect. For me it shows that the company did not earn enough in the time from June 2013 until July 2014 for paying his salary and/or he got fired on his other job.
If I read additional in the year 2015 at http://syntel.com.au/why-syntel (2016-02-25: Link removed - Domain not exists): "We have spent the last 6 years perfecting VOIP (Voice Over IP) phone systems which means you can take advantage of the internet to make cheaper, often free calls." than I know that they are notorious liars or they are not able to calculate by using their brain and have not enough money for a pocket calculator. Both is in business worse.
If such a person even does not understand the difference between a LinkedIn company page and a LinkedIn personal profile, then it shows that the person seems have a real problem understanding any rules in business. If I read additional in his profile that his language is Punjabi then I think already about a post forwarding service and not about a local company in Australia.
Anyway the business amateur Amajit Sohota has sent me from his "personal company" profile at LinkedIn the following offer:
G`day Rudolf,
How are ya?
Many thanks for accepting my invite.
The reason I am getting in touch is that we have large presence in Manila and we are growing fast. We have a couple of ex-pats, from Australia, who are recommending our Hosted VPBX Services to customers in Manila. This is going great and I was wondering if this would be something we could partner up with?
The Dealer Agreement is a pretty straight forward arrangement whereby you locate possible opportunities, scope them out and then recommend us to them. We then take care of the rest. If they sign up we are happy to pay the following, which to date is the largest number of seats we have had come on board through a referral in one go:
5,000 Seat Opportunity.
5000 x $10 = $50,000 Up Front Fee
This particular customer went for the $49.95 All inclusive plan.
Therefore the trail is as follows: 5000 x $49.95 = $249,750.00 10% Trail = $24,975.00 Per Month for the 36 Months of the contract.
Most customers opt for either the $15 plan or the $49.95, depending on their needs. There are plans in between, they do not get much take up. We can be bespoke, if the opportunity requires, just let us know and we can amend accordingly. We pride ourselves on being proactive and dynamic.
As you can see the figures are inviting, for the right opportunity. This is, to date, the largest opportunity we have had in Manila.
Please do get back to me on: amanjit@syntel.com.au if this of interest.
My Director of Support will be in Manila in early December and would be happy to meet up, to discuss further. I will be up in early February, so happy to meet then, if that suits.
Enjoy your day and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Thanks!
Ammo
0427 550 566
1300 739 885
amanjit@syntel.com.au
I really cannot believe that one owner of a 5,000 seat call center can be so stupid to sign-up with such a suspicious company. Does such a call center owner not think about the risk what he has with only one business partner? Such a center needs to get divided into a few sections to reduce the risk of a fail. A serious consultant will warn such people and reject the job if the call center owner does not understand the risk. One example of the risk: If the Internet connection from the place of the center drops for an hour the damage would be 5,000 working hours of his agents! The same can happen with the power connection of the center - only the Internet connection drops normally more often than the power connection.
As the email address provided in the offer is from an Australian domain I think that the prices are in Australian Dollars. Based on the exchange rate from today the up-front fee of AU$ 50,000 has the value of US$ 35,499.51 and the offer the monthly payment from AU$ 24,975 has the value of US$ 17,732.
Nowhere is written what is all included in the "all inclusive" offer. It seems to be only important for Amanjit Sahota to make money instead of explaining his offer. I would kick out such a salesman from my company. VoIP minutes cannot be included because they are different from country to country, from provider to provider and if fixed or mobile phones are get called. The local computers from the centers and the Internet connection of the center cannot be included too because the price is depending on the region of the world. In this case in the "all inclusive" offer can be only be included can the basic hosting and the rental of a phone system. For this is the offered price nothing else than profiteering.
To my reply "Maybe you need to rethink your offer and compare your prices with others on the international market", I got the answer:
G`day Rudolf,
How are ya?
Thanks for the message. We have Call Centres which are primarily for Overseas Clients, so our rates are good for them. Happy to discuss what would work with you.
Thanks!
Ammo
It seems to be his sales strategy. I don't think that he would be really successful with this strategy.
Let us make a simple calculation example: I would take for security reasons at 4 SQL server, which are storing the data, the configuration of the phone systems and the call detail records. The price for one sql server hardware is around US$ 1,000. In sum we spend US$ 4,000 for our datastorage system. Additonal I would use for 500 seats one phone system based on Linux and Asterisk (Asterisk itself, GoAutoDial or a similar product). The price for one of these phone systems is around US$ 500. As I need 10 from them I spend in sum US$ 5,000. As Linux, Asterisk, GoAutoDial is open source I don't need to pay something for the software and I have enough capacity for a failover in the case that one system dies. Each of the phone systems will get connected to different Internet providers. This will enhance the failover possibilities and reduces the risk of an Internet drop. As more different VoIP providers I'll use as higher would get my security in the case of an error. I even can make a least cost routing between the chosen VoIP providers.
If we take now the above calculation in sum then I have spent until now only US$ 9,000 for the hardware. If I like to use the MS SQL server instead of a Linux open source SQL server than I need to spend additional US$ 650 for the Windows Server Software and US$ 4000 for the MS SQL Server. As I'm using 4 SQL-Server I have to spend in this case US$ 18,600 for the software. Even if we are now counting everything together we spend in sum US$ 27,600. That is even less than the up-front fee from the offer from Syntel Pvt. Ltd. (US$ 35,499.51). I would even make personally the complete server setup for the center for less than the half of the remaining US$ 7,899.517, which this solution is cheaper then the up-front costs from Syntel Pvt. Ltd.
The savings of my suggestion are in this case the "very small" amount of US$ 24.975 each month for 36 months of the contract. That makes the "little" sum of US$ 899,100 during 3 years of operation.
Update November 23, 2015: Syntel sent a message that in the "all inclusive" Plan is VoIP included:
G`day Rudolf,
How are ya? Hope you had a great weekend.
The All Inclusive Plans included All Local/National Calls All 1300/1800 Numbers and All Mobile calls.
Hope that assist. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Thanks!
A call center is working 17 hours a day (call time between 8 am and 9 pm additional 4 time zones on the continent) and 6 days a week calling the U.S. If we take now the minutes generated from a single agent then we need to multiply 60 minutes per hour * 17 hours a day * 26 days per month to see the result of 26,520 minutes an agent is generating during one month. If we divide now the difference between the standard plan and the all inclusive plan (AU$ 34.95 = US$ 25.26) then we see that this sum got offered as flat rate from some VoIP providers for private users. These VoIP providers, which have offered such a flat rate, are getting found now at the VoIP cemetery. The reason is very simple found. We need only divide the US$ 25.26 by the generated minutes from one agent during one month - 26,520. The result is rounded US$ 0.00095249. This minute price is far under the value which are the telecom companies billing under each other for the minutes. Each minute will generate a loss in this case. Not one company will pay you for using their lines.
The all inclusive offer is even worse and the loss for the phone companies higher for the case that this offer is restricted to the Australian phone numbers. The Australian free phone numbers 1300/1800 are not getting called from call centers because call centers need to sell something and not speak with customer services. The interconnect exchange rate is for Australia even at least 10 times higher than from U.S. phone companies. The agent is only 1 hour less generating per day because Australia has only 3 time zones on the continent.