The Hindu Business Line : Accenture doubles manpower in India

ACCENTURE has more than doubled its manpower in India in a year. For the year ended November 2004, the company's manpower in India increased to around 11,000 as against 4,300 a year before, according to Mr Pankaj Vaish, India BPO Lead, Accenture.

On Accenture's Chennai centre, Mr Vaish said around 500 employees are currently working at an incubation centre, and the company would move in to its own premise by July or August.

Accenture is building a large centre in Chennai, but company officials declined to provide details on the manpower strength to be added in the centre. "We see India as a strategic location for us due to availability of rich talent," he told newspersons.

Accenture would continue to hire professionals having experience with a wide range of services the company offers, including finance transaction processing, customer relationship management, IT help desk support, applications development, support for SAP, Peoplesoft and Oracle applications, says a press release.

According to Mr Chaitanya Kamat, Head, India Delivery Centre Network, Accenture, the company is seeing more growth in countries such as India. Accenture's Indian centres, which are located at Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai, are all doing high-end and complex outsourcing jobs. "Outsourcing in India is not about pricing, but about things that were not done in the past," he said.

Accenture, which has been operating in India since 1987, serves over 100 clients in India. It works for seven of the top ten business groups; six of the top pharmaceutical companies; three of top five paper companies; and five of the top 15 textile companies, according to a company press release.

The Indian delivery centres provides a variety of services, including applications development and maintenance, as well as BPO capabilities such as call centre, human resources, finance and administration functions, the release said.

Both Mr Kamat and Mr Vaish said Accenture does not find competition from domestic IT firms, including top players, while bidding for large outsourcing projects. "Our major competitor was IBM," they said.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page