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Mr Joe W. Forehand, Chairman, Accenture (left), and Mr Steve Rohleder, Chief Operating Officer, at a press conference in Bangalore on Wednesday. — G.R.N. Somashekar

Bangalore , March 9

INDIA is key to Accenture's delivery strategy and considering the demand for its outsourcing and consulting services, the company expects to see rapid growth in Asia, including its centres at India, Manila (the Philippines) and Dalian (China), Mr Joe W. Forehand, Chairman, said.

Accenture's Indian operations have grown in just four years to the second largest in net employee headcount and more growth is likely in the region, given the outsourcing focus of clients, he said.

India is an important part of Accenture's network of 48 delivery centres in 30 countries and represents a significant percentage of the total resources, Mr Steve Rohleder, COO, said. India is one of Accenture's most active developing markets. "We continue to see demand and will leverage the people here to expand operations," Mr Forehand said, but declined to put a number to the headcount growth or investments.

"It is important for our delivery strategy to have robust and scalable high-quality centres in technology and business process outsourcing, Mr Forehand said, adding that the company would make India a central hub of Accenture, serving large global clients.

The company is planning to shift some additional internal functions to India, having offshored its knowledge management capabilities earlier. About two-thirds of its Indian workforce is engaged in IT services, while BPO accounts for one-third. "We are seeing some great momentum in BPO and look to expand with industry-specific solutions," said Mr Rohleder.

Accenture in talks with service providers

Accenture is in talks with third-party providers for call centre work, said Mr Forehand. India is witnessing great momentum in the BPO sector, according to him. The company, however, wants to build its services around BPO activity and "has chosen to take a lowered capital cost route to building call centre capabilities." The company will prefer to partner with third-party providers for voice work. It currently has a partnership with HCL and is also in talks with "other providers," Mr Forehand, said, but declined to name them. Accenture does not want to become just a large call centre; it wants to offer customers call centre services as part of a larger offering, said Mr Pankaj Vaish, Head, India BPO.

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