LAURENT Junique realised his dream of becoming an entrepreneur when he launched his business call centre services firm Teledirect Telecom-merce in 1995.
At the back of my mind, I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and be involved in a business that I am passionate about. Maybe it has to do with the sense of adventure, Junique told StarBiz in an interview.
To him, going into business allowed him to fulfil his interest and work for himself.
Laurent Junique says a call centre business is all about managing people.
The chief executive officer of Teledirect has a bachelor's degree in business studies from Ecole Superieure Internationale d'Adminis-tration des Enterprises, Paris. He had been working in the call centre industry for more than 10 years before venturing out on his own.
Junique had also worked as a telemarketer during his student days for one of the first telecommerce companies in France. It was during this period that he stumbled upon the world of telemarketing by joining France's pioneer telemarketing company, Phone Marketing (now known as Convergys).
With the burning desire to be an entrepreneur and making it on his own, Junique decided to venture abroad. He went to Singapore, equipped with one suitcase and a dream of making it big.
The French entrepreneur saw the opportunity to start a call centre business because there was none locally at that point. It was a good move, as Teledirect has since expanded its operations with presence in Malaysia, Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong.
Teledirect is a call centre that is employed by other firms to help in their customer services and telemarketing. Currently, it has more than 850 workstations in Asia.
Junique said he started with a low budget, taking things a step at a time. He added that his previous experience with call centres in France came in handy.
The turning point for Teledirect came in 1996, when the London-based advertising giant WPP Group plc acquired a stake in our company, he said, adding that WPP's entry into Teledirect was the catalyst that led to its expansion across the region.
The journey over the last decade for this entrepreneur has been exciting and challenging.
When I first started, it was difficult and took some time for the business to get off the ground. Things started to pick up only in 2000 and we entered the Malaysian market in 2001, Junique recalled.
We moved our regional operations centre to Kuala Lumpur to capitalise on Malaysia's growing potential.
The potential for Malaysia to be a regional hub is huge, with its attractive labour costs, infrastructure and language skills. It is probably the best location for a regional hub, he said.
Junique said Malaysia was chosen as the hub due to the multilingual community, stable economic condition and good infrastructure.
As one of Asias leading experts in this fast-growing field, Teledirect, which started its operation here with only eight telephone sales representatives (TSRs), now boasts a staff of 530 TSRs serving clients across the region.
Managing a call centre business is all about managing people. Unlike other traditional businesses, a call centre's sole product is its human talent, he said.
It takes a lot of effort to deliver our best to our clients and to do that, we need to hire the best. We are still in the process of hiring more people due to our expansion programme, he said.
Junique said that to ensure its TSRs had good communication skills, every new employee at Teledirect must undergo an intensive induction programme when they joined the company. The focus of the training is to learn how to communicate effectively.
Our employees are often headhunted by other telecommerce companies. We have also tied up with the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the Certified Professional Contact Centre Agent programme, he noted.
Teledirect focuses on sales acceleration for its clients, which are mainly from the financial services sector. Junique believes it still does not have much competition.
We do not have much competition because we are very focused. We do not want to be everything to everyone, and because we have defined the niche, our competition is very limited, he explained.
Junique believes in the importance of empowering employees because that creates an environment for people to excel. His management philosophies revolve largely around empowerment and self-initiative.
Like many business school graduates, Junique has big plans for the company. He said Teledirect was currently in the midst of expanding its geographical presence. He said the group would be setting up offices in Indonesia, India and China.
We hope the new offices will be ready by year-end. Indonesia is a new emerging market with huge potential. The market there is bigger than Malaysia, Junique said, adding that the group would also acquire companies if opportunities arose.
While Teledirect hopes to expand its presence overseas, the group is also adding more disciplines to offer to its clients in order to grow its market share. He declined to go into specifics when asked about his company's financial performance.
Running a business can be frustrating, but Junique has found striking the right balance between family and work to be every bit as challenging.
He finds joy in the simple things in life spending time with family and friends, reading, watching movies, playing the guitar and piano, travelling and dining. The frequent traveller also tries to spend four nights a week at home with his family.
Although his business is already up and running, he is not going to rest on his laurels and will continue to strive for greater heights.