In order to further strengthen its customer service, Amazon has announced that it has established a joint venture with Ashok Patni Group. In the joint venture, Patni holds majority stake, i.e. 51 percent.
In customer service, the company is looking to improve call center service, and is targeting to support the growing number of local-language customers.
According to the filings with Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the company, named Frontizo Business Services, has already started operations in Bengaluru from June this year.
The company has received an investment of ₹197 crore from Amazon Asia Pacific Holdings and Patni’s Zodiac Wealth Advisors LLP have also invested in the company, but the amount in not known.
Vinod Kumar, who was working as a senior manager at Amazon India, has been appointed as the chief executive officer of Frontizo Business Services. As Kumar has spent a decade at Capgemini’s BPO, he has vast experience in this field.
The joint venture has five directors — three representatives of Patni and two of Amazon. Amazon’s director of category management Sameer Khetarpal and general manager Rajarshi Guin are on the board of Frontizo.
In an email response to Economic Times, Frontizo’s spokesperson said:
It is estimated that there are more than 450 million customers with Internet access in India. Only a handful of them shop today through ecommerce sites. Majority of these new customers will come from small towns and rural areas and will have different needs like vernacular language support and alternate operating models to serve them.
The joint venture is speculated to act as a seller on the Amazon India platform, similar to the Cloudtail JV with Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy. If it also starts operating as a seller on Amazon, it is expected to focus on selected categories only.