The Hindu Business Line : MindTree plans to hike India headcount

Mr Ashok Soota, Chairman and Managing Director, MindTree Consulting, in front of the company's new campus at Mysore Road in Bangalore on Saturday. — G.R.N. Somashekar

Bangalore , Feb. 26

MINDTREE Consulting plans to ramp up its India headcount by over 3,000 in a couple of years.

The company, which recently opened a new campus at an investment of Rs 85 crore, said it would pump in a total of Rs 200 crore to develop its Bangalore West campus to provide facilities for about 5,000 people, said Mr Ashok Soota, Chairman and Managing Director.

With markets expanding in the US, Europe, ASEAN and West Asia for IT and R&D services, the company is on track to achieve revenues of $230 million by 2007-08, Mr Soota said. He added that MindTree would consider acquiring companies with specific capabilities to diversify its offerings in the market.

MindTree Consulting, which gets 6-7 per cent of its revenues from the India market, found Indian customers were willing to pay for cutting edge technology work, according to Mr Krishnakumar Natarajan, President and CEO, IT Services. Recent customers include the Singapore Ports Authority and Emirates Airlines.

The company's R&D services wing offers value-added product realisation services to customers such as Alcatel, Cisco, Fujitsu, LSI Logic, Hitachi and Epson, said Mr Janakiraman S., President and CEO, R&D Services.

Europe contributes 22 per cent of the company's revenues, said Mr Soota.

"MindTree's West campus has been designed taking into consideration the communication needs of software professionals and the way in which they work," said Mr Subroto Bagchi, COO. "This involves team-sized workplaces, informal activity and learning areas and facilities to enable individuals to participate in the company's growth."

Informal workplace: MindTree's new campus in Bangalore - Rainforest - has taken design inputs from the students and faculty of the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, to enable work and leisure spaces meet the needs and desires of the staff, said Mr Bagchi.

According to a study by architect firm Prem Chandrvarkar and Thacker, most software teams consist of seven people, as indeed did most people's immediate families.

"As a result, at MindTree's West campus, there is no sea of cubicles but seven workspaces creating a family unit, seven of which congregate around a Greek-inspired Agora - an informal `village' meeting place complete with a symbolic banyan and stone seats to meet or lounge in.

We found the typical software engineer does not want to work in an anthill - we have tried to make this workspace aspirational and inspirational," Mr Bagchi said.

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MindTree plans to hike India headcount

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