Company expands to north

Fifty jobs have been created in Tauranga as Oamaru company Pulse Business Solutions expands its call centre company.

Key Research acquired Pulse Business Solutions in 2008 and group chairman Michael Hooker said the Oamaru site had reached capacity.

Mr Hooker said Pulse was expanding its business call centre service into Tauranga, offering customer contact and market research services.

Pulse offers call centre services to the Earthquake Commission, Ezibuy, Mike Pero, Lumley, Sovereign and Australian market research agencies.

"We needed to make sure that we could grow the business where we could," Mr Hooker said. "Many of our clients are now offering us volumes that we can only service well through this expansion.

"Tauranga will allow us to grow the business without the size constraints of a small town's labour force."

Oamaru had been considered as a site for the expansion, but the area's labour force proved unsuitable, he said.

The new business call centre in Tauranga opened last week with 20 seats and would move to 50 seats within 12 months.

Mr Hooker said the new centre in Tauranga would not take work from the Oamaru call centre.

Pulse Business Solutions Oamaru manager Mal Purcell said they expected a huge pre-Christmas rush for their Ezibuy contract.

Last year, Ezibuy had 48,000 calls for orders during the Christmas period.

Mr Purcell said, realistically, the 73 Oamaru call centre staff would be able to handle 16,000 of those calls.

Key Research bought Western Australia market research company West Coast Field Services this year.

The next step in Mr Hooker's vision of creating a multinational market research agency was to buy another company in Perth, then a significant acquisition in one of Australia's eastern states: "Our wider goal, once we have completed acquisitions in Australia, was to look at what we can achieve in the broader Asia-Pacific region."

Key Research, a Tauranga company, opened in 1993. Mr Hooker bought it in 2001 and the expansion had been achieved despite the tight economic climate.

Mr Hooker could not disclose the group's turnover, except to say revenue was less than $10 million. There were no plans to close Pulse in Oamaru.

Additional reporting by John Cousins of the Bay of Plenty Times