KEN HILLS has stood down as the chief executive of TSC, the Scottish-based contact centre company which merged with Indian conglomerate Hero in a £40m deal last year.

Hills, who will remain as a non-executive director of the company, is joining LloydsTSB Development Capital. He has been replaced by David Turner, who joins from technology consultancy Trinity Horne.

Turner said the company is now looking at using its Indian resources to offer customers a more complete package.

“With Hero’s presence in India, we are able to offer much more back office resources as well as voice services. As customers become more cost conscious, we think that is going to prove attractive,” said Turner.

“We think there are going to be a number of opportunities for us in areas such as the financial sector and as firms look to outsource as they cut costs.”

TSC is Scotland’s biggest contact centre company and the UK’s fourth largest. It started in Rothesay in the 1990s with seven staff and now has premises across the UK employing just under 3,000 people. Its clients include Vodafone, T-Mobile, HSBC and Hewlett Packard.

Six years ago it was the subject of a £22m management buy-in funded by Lloyds. Hills joined after the firm hit problems and helped turn it around before last year’s £40m deal.

The Scottish-based management run all of Hero’s contact centres including its Indian ones. Earlier this year, TSC reported a 12% rise in turnover to £55.1m for 2007.

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