Quantanite: The back office in Dhaka powering global digital work

Tarun Kumar Roy had just started a new job at Quantanite. He had a pre-scheduled meeting with a US client and had already booked the conference room. Arriving on time, he found a well-dressed foreign gentleman on his laptop, deeply focused.

Thinking he might have come at the wrong time, Tarun politely explained that he needed the room. The gentleman apologised immediately and left without hesitation.

That gentleman was Mikko Tamminen, a Finnish citizen and the Founder and Chairman of Quantanite. Tarun was struck by his humility. Surely Mikko had important work of his own, yet he gave up the room without a second thought. Employees say that the same sense of politeness and humility has shaped the culture at Quantanite. 

A graduate of Stanford University, Mikko arrived in Bangladesh in 2014, intending to launch a business. At first, he considered creating a food delivery app. However, he ultimately chose the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) industry, recognising the sector's immense potential in Bangladesh. 

The country offered precisely what the industry required: a large, educated workforce capable of handling content moderation and back office operations.

'Bangladesh is a fertile ground for creativity'

Quantanite's website describes Bangladesh as fertile ground for creativity and untapped talent. Around 85% of the company's employees are graduates, making them especially capable of handling complex operational challenges.

Nafiz Alam, director of People Operations at Quantanite, explained, "India, Philippines and Thailand are ahead of us in the BPO sector because they started much earlier. But our strength lies in the fact that we have far more graduates, while labour costs are still relatively low."

"Mikko probably recognised that potential from the beginning."

He described how BPO services quietly power much of the digital economy behind the scenes.

"Take a restaurant website," he said. "Someone has to upload the menu items, update prices, manage promotional offers and maintain the listings. BPO employees often handle those tasks. The same applies to clothing manufacturers, where details such as colour, size, fabric and measurements must constantly be updated online. Hiring a full in-house team for these jobs would be expensive, especially since workloads fluctuate. Outsourcing is more efficient and cost-effective."

Workplace for more than 1,400 employees

One of Quantanite's earliest recruits was Imtiaz Ahmed Anil, the ninth employee to join the company. Today, the Dhaka office alone employs more than 1,400 people.

Anil began as an Associate and is now Senior Manager of Administration and Facilities. His first project involved working for a Lithuanian game developer. The game revolved around music trivia, with questions about bands such as Metallica, The Beatles and Pink Floyd, including album release dates, vocalists, guitarists and lyricists. Players progressed through the game by answering correctly.

As a musician himself, Anil loved the assignment. His relationship with the client, Marcus, became so warm that Marcus eventually sent him a t-shirt as a gift.

Later, Anil worked on cataloguing Halloween costumes for the American e-commerce giant eBay. He also contributed to a mapping project in the UK, identifying parking spaces using bird's-eye imagery, street views and traffic signage.

Having studied Business Studies at the London School of Commerce in Dhaka, Anil found the workplace culture at Quantanite especially appealing. The office includes a cinema room, gaming spaces and a rooftop garden where employees can relax after work.

After spending three years in operations, Anil moved into HR. Over the course of 12 years, he steadily rose from manager to senior manager.

"Almost all our clients are foreign, mainly from the US and Europe," he said. "Working with people from different cultures is always interesting. Americans are extremely serious while working, but relaxed afterwards. British clients often wrap things up quickly with a simple 'ta-ta, goodbye'. Once, a Swedish client held up a smartphone during a training call and started explaining how smartphones worked, assuming I had never used one before."

Infographic: TBS

Anil laughed as he recalled pulling out his own phone, a newer model than the client's. Because it was a set with the latest version.

Being an early part of the team, Anil had known Mikko for a long time. He shared that Mikko first learned about Bangladesh from a Bangladeshi alumnus of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, whose office was in Gulshan. 

When he came to Dhaka, Mikko initially shared that same office in Gulshan. After seven months, he moved his office to Mirpur DOHS. Three years later, his workforce grew to 100 employees. About two years later, when they needed a larger space, Quantanite moved to the 10th floor of the CRP Building in Mirpur.

Mikko usually stayed in Dhaka for three to four months at a time. He stayed at the Amari Hotel in Gulshan. For lunch, he would often order pizza from Pizza Hut. Mikko is friendly toward his colleagues. He prefers not to work from a separate office room; instead, he likes to work alongside his team.

No prior experience required

The BPO industry often requires rapid recruitment when major projects arrive with tight deadlines. During his time in HR, Anil once had to recruit 70 employees within just two weeks.

The requirements were simple: basic IT skills and workable English. Prior experience was not essential. Although entry-level salaries often fall below Tk20,000 per month, graduates from disciplines such as EEE (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) and BBA programmes continue to show strong interest in the sector.

Nafiz Alam believes many young people value the environment and exposure as much as the salary itself.

"For some, BPO work acts as a bridge while preparing to move abroad," he explained. "It gives them valuable exposure to European and American workplace culture. Last year, while visiting London, I met one of our former employees working as a Workforce Manager for Uniqlo. Both immigrants and British staff were working under him. Seeing that was incredibly rewarding."

QLab and the rise of AI

Certain BPO operations involve so-called "live teams", where employees rarely leave their desks. They perform high-speed verification tasks, often within a second or two, identifying nudity, hate speech, racism or inflammatory content.

Quantanite expanded beyond Dhaka in 2015 by entering the UK market, followed by the US in 2017. In 2020, the company launched a call centre in South Africa. By 2023, its global workforce had grown to around 2,000 employees.

That same year, Quantanite established QLab in Mumbai, focusing on how Artificial Intelligence could be integrated more effectively into client services.

Asked whether AI threatens the BPO industry, Nafiz Alam offered a measured response.

"We are trying to stay ahead by learning how to use AI effectively," he said. "Repetitive work can be handled by AI, which frees people to focus on more creative tasks. That ultimately improves client satisfaction."

Since many of Quantanite's clients are start-ups, the company often acts as more than just a service provider.

"Many start-ups don't fully understand workflow management," Alam explained. "They give us tasks without always knowing how to use the outcomes efficiently. In those situations, we share our own operational experience and help guide them."

'AI is still a student'

Nafiz Alam believes AI remains in an early stage of development. "AI is still a student," he said. "The danger begins when it starts acting like a teacher."

He pointed to the growing ethical debates surrounding AI-assisted warfare and automated decision-making.

"Technological progress cannot be stopped," he said. "But human beings adapt much faster than technology itself. The intelligent approach is to learn how to use AI constructively rather than destructively."

Tarun Kumar Roy, now Learning and Development Manager at Quantanite, said AI training has become a central part of the company's internal curriculum. Employees study the history of AI, its practical applications and the mechanics of how it functions.

Kazi Sayeed, now a Team Leader managing a team consisting of 10 members, recalled one of the most unusual assignments from his days as an Associate.

Quantanite Chief Operating Officer Gavin Atkinson conducting an AI adaptation workshop. Photo: Courtesy

His task involved monitoring dashboard camera footage to identify distracted or unsafe drivers. In one clip, he noticed a driver holding something in his hand. At first, it looked like a pen. After zooming in, however, Sayeed realised it was a cigarette, a violation of company policy while driving.

Sayeed, a graduate in Business Management, sees AI as a positive development.

Nafiz Alam, meanwhile, highlighted the enormous resources AI systems consume.

"Many start-ups still cannot afford large-scale AI costs," he said. "Even answering a small query with AI consumes resources. Data centres require huge amounts of electricity and water. Licensing AI systems is also extremely expensive, even if many services appear free at the moment because the technology is still learning."

Shafayet Shimul, a Quality Checker who has worked at Quantanite for six years, has handled projects ranging from restaurant menus and receipts to clothing descriptions and property maintenance reports.

Residents would contact him about noisy neighbours, damaged gardens, broken doorbells or leaking taps, and he would relay the information to property management companies.

Like many at Quantanite, Shimul sees AI as an opportunity rather than a threat.

"Since AI is already here, we should learn how to benefit from it," he said. "It may even create entirely new kinds of work. Looking at it positively is far more useful than panicking."

Serving the world, from Dhaka

Quantanite Bangladesh functions primarily as a Service Delivery Centre rather than a traditional call centre. According to the company, South Africa performs better in voice-based customer support because of its spoken English proficiency, while Bangladesh's larger pool of graduates makes it better suited for operational and back-office services.

The company recently opened another call centre in Cairo, taking advantage of the city's multilingual workforce, including speakers of Portuguese and Spanish.

Despite the rapid growth of freelancing opportunities worldwide, Anil prefers the stability of structured employment. "Freelancers must constantly search for their next project," he said. "If work dries up, they sit idle. Here, our global sales team finds the clients for us."

Nafiz Alam explained that Quantanite's sales teams actively monitor emerging start-ups across Europe and America, securing contracts either on an hourly basis or through full project agreements.

Political instability, however, remains a challenge. During the 2024 mass uprising in Bangladesh, internet shutdowns caused Quantanite to lose a major project, resulting in the lay-off of around 350 employees.

On another occasion, the company nearly secured work connected to Meta through a third party. The deal ultimately collapsed because the client demanded seven years of police records for every employee, a requirement that is not standard practice in Bangladesh.

Over the years, Quantanite has worked with several globally recognised organisations, although strict NDAs prevent the company from publicly revealing most client names. Former clients that can be disclosed include Tripadvisor, Coursera and Mapillary, which was later acquired by Facebook.

From offices in Dhaka, Quantanite employees are quietly solving problems for companies across the developed world. It is a striking example of how global digital labour now flows across borders.

Quantanite Bangladesh operates around the clock, 24 hours a day. Its leadership believes that, by working alongside AI rather than against it, the possibilities for future growth will only continue to expand.