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Mukesh Ambani in News

Mukesh Patel (October 5, 1953 to September 19, 2009) is widely recognized as one of the “founding fathers” of the entrepreneurial, third-party Indian call center industry. Although formally trained and accomplished as an environmental engineer, specializing in designing and installing fly ash reduction systems for large industrial applications, in 1997 he had a “brain-storm” which was to change the direction of his life and improve the lives and future prospects of thousands on Indian nationals. As he relayed the story to colleagues many times over the years, as he sat in his living room in Mumbai he envisioned thousands of English speaking Indians performing customer sales, service and business processing tasks for US customers, enabled by the newly emerging internet communications and more widely available high-speed broadband connectivity. Concurrently, visionary business leaders like Jack Welch were thinking along the same lines, and Welch’s GE began to build-out what would become a force of 15,000 Indian based agents, and GE was soon followed by American Express, Citibank and a host of US Fortune 500 companies seeking to reduce their customer service contact center costs.

By 2000, Patel had secured a tie-up with a US-based call center software company and engineered the network scheme and International Private Line Circuit requirements that would enable Indian call centers agents to talk to US customers at reasonable telecom rates. He traveled to Mumbai in September of 2009 and over the course of the following four weeks, consulted to dozens of groups representing every vertical, all eager to join in the call center boom. His clients included Naveen Munjal of Hero Honda, Gujurat Heavy Chemicals Limited, Kamal Nath as well as leading representatives of the sugar, tea, diamond, automotive, banking, energy and water sectors, all of which were expanding their portfolios to include call center initiatives.

By 2001, Patel had launched more than 40 entrepreneurial call centers in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Gurgoan, Noida, Ahmedabad, Chandighar Hyderabad and Kerala. Those centers accounted for the creation of more than 12,000 new jobs for India agents, many of whom have grown up with the industry and acceded to outstanding and high paying life-long careers in an industry that continues to flourish and expand.

Mukesh Patel hosted many visiting US business men over the years and they have reported that along with his keen business acumen and unbridled sense of humor, he was also known for his humanitarianism and generosity. In Mumbai, there is a particular restaurant where the impoverished sit in a queue for hours waiting for someone to pass by and give the owner a few rupees so a couple of them could go inside and eat a meal. Patel would never pass by this restaurant without stopping and would give the owner enough money to clear the entire waiting area, allowing 50, 75, even 100 poor and hungry men, women and children to go inside and enjoy a hearty meal.

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