The Hindu Business Line : Thomson Financial to expand Bangalore centre

Ms Sarah Dunn, Chief Content Officer, (left), Mr David H Shaffer, Chief Executive Officer, Thomson Financial, and Ms Sandhya Vasudevan, MD, at a press conference in Bangalore on Thursday. - - G. R. N. Somashekar

Bangalore , April 22

THOMSON Financial, an operating unit of Thomson Corp, plans to employ 1,500 professionals in its Bangalore centre by mid-2005, according to the Chief Executive Officer, Mr David Shaffer. The centre now employs 875 people.

The company opened a new centre in Bangalore that can house 550 employees. It started its Bangalore operations in 1995 and the current engagements include software product development, data analysis and production of Thomson Financial's proprietary financial databases such as Thomson First Call and Thomson Worldscope.

"Our new facility gives us the capacity we need to grow a range of business functions," Mr Shaffer said. The company is also looking at expanding its earnings estimate coverage out of Bangalore centre, according to the Chief Content Officer, Ms Sarah Dunn. Thomson now employs 600 analysts and 20 earnings estimates specialists in Bangalore.

Though the company ruled out the possibility of rolling out news products in India in near term, Ms Dunn said, "We are looking at market expansion of news products." Thomson had recently tied up CBS for global business news delivery. Thomson joins the rank of several global companies, which are setting up operations in India to beat cost and take advantage of cheaper educated labour force.