HostPlus has made the unorthodox decision to move its contact centre in-house, hiring 50 former Superpartners staff in the process.

The $5 billion fund is currently renegotiating its contract with administrator Superpartners but David Elia, HostPlus chief executive officer, said the decision to bring the call centre component of the administration in-house was all about control. “We’ve taken the decision to take control. Outsourcing effectively means you relinquish your control and that comes at a cost,” he said. Superpartners will continue to conduct the backoffice administration for HostPlus and the new contract arrangement is expected to be finalised next month. The contact centre went live on April 2, 2007 and Elia said the transition had been seamless. “It’s the closest thing to call centre heaven. It’s all part of our broad vision of being people focussed,” he said. Under contract negotiations, HostPlus were required to offer positions to all 54 former Superpartners employees who worked on HostPlus, and Elia says all but four took up the offer. “It’s the transition of a significant part of our business. We now control all the customer interfacing points,” he said.