The Hindu Business Line : Reuters bets big on Bangalore unit

Mr Geert Linnebank, Editor-in-Chief and Global Head of Content, Reuters; Mr Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom; and Mr N. Dharam Singh, Chief Minister of Karnataka, at the inauguration of Reuters' new facility in Bangalore on Thursday. — G.R.N. Somashekar

Bangalore , Oct. 7

WITH the official opening of the finance business data centre of global news provider Reuters, a new avenue of outsourcing has opened for India.

However certain challenges such as wage inflation, retention and training costs coupled with poor infrastructure will have to be tackled if the country is to sustain its cost competitiveness, according to Mr Geert Linnebank, Editor-in-Chief and Global Head of Content, Reuters.

Speaking to Business Line on the sidelines of the formal launch of the Reuters Centre here, Mr Linnebank said even though India is an attractive destination for outsourcing/offshoring currently, in the long run this might not hold true unless steps were taken to check the rising wage inflation.

"We anticipate some issues in retaining employees and for this we are looking at various strategies. Offering them training and long-term growth within Reuters is one way. Some of them we might look to move to other centres such as the US or London later," Mr Linnebank said.

Having firmed up plans to triple its staff in India by end-2005, Reuters will move more editorial work to India. From the current 340 people on board, Reuters plans to increase the count to 1,200 employees in the given time frame.

The centre, inaugurated by Mr Dharam Singh, Karnataka Chief Minister, and attended by Mr Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom, is one of the four key locations for the international news provider. The new facility would host data operations, news and business services.

While some of the jobs have been migrated from other centres, Mr Linnebank said new jobs have been created. "We are looking at increasing the editorial content from here (Bangalore) and for this we need to smoothen out some technology issues as to how the news content can be integrated into the US given the time lag. There is already a small editorial team of 13 journalists working on news reports for Reuters," he said.

The initial focus would be on corporate earnings report and broker research in US companies.

Early next year, Reuters will also create an internal business services operation within the Bangalore facility. This will form part of Reuters Global Finance division and will process finance transactions for the Group in areas of general accounting services and cash applications.

According to the Editor-in-Chief, poor infrastructure in the city is likely to pose problems. "It is certainly less than what we expected and something needs to be done about it. Transportation will be a problem once we have the (bigger) team in place," he added.

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