Member Article

300 new jobs from virtual call centres

Hundreds of jobs will be created in the North East through a ‘virtual’ call centre company.

US-based Arise Virtual Solutions is expanding across the UK and plans to bring 300 jobs to the region after tying up deals to provide call centre services to major firms.

The company operates “virtual” call centre operations, which allows workers to be based at home and operate as their own individual small businesses. Arise aims to create 1000 positions in the UK by the end of the year.

While increasing numbers of call centre operators are now trialling home-based working opportunities, Arise is the only company to use home working as its entire operation.

The move has been hailed by organisations including the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), which praised the company for allowing people to set up their own independent ventures while still being part of an overall group.

John Riordan, international vice-president of Arise, said: “It’s clear that we are gaining major traction in the UK for our unique business model. Several other major national contracts are currently in the pipeline.

“We may be in recessionary times but Arise represents a business that is not only building a new market model but one which will add 1,000 independent home-based businesses to the UK economy in 2009.”

Stephen Alambritis, of the FSB, said: “This growth dovetails nicely with the Government’s drive to encourage new start-up businesses.

“We are pleased to learn that they will be actively encouraging the new businesses to make full use of regional Business Link services to ensure that all these new businesses grow from strength to strength.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .