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Vishwanath Kulkarni
Krishnan Thiagarajan

Looking to acquire small, medium-size cos

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Mumbai Feb. 7 French IT services major Atos Origin plans to triple its India headcount in the next three years to about 5,000 from the current 1,600 through organic growth even as it explores the acquisition route, said Chairman and CEO, Mr Bernard Bourigeaud, on Wednesday.

Speaking to Business Line on the sidelines of The Nasscom Leadership Summit 2007, Mr Bourigeaud felt that the Indian companies were ``too expensive'' for acquisitions at the moment.

While declining to comment on the acquisition size that the company was pursuing, Mr Bourigeaud added that they were looking only at small and medium-sized companies. The company is said to be examining acquisition opportunities in specialised business areas such as electronic payment (credit cards), which will be one of the major focus areas for Atos Origin in Europe in 2007.

Going local

Further, Mr Bourigeaud said the company was not only looking at India from a delivery perspective, but also as a platform to launch itself in the Asian market. Atos considers the local market potential and builds on it before expanding its operations. ``You cannot have sustainable presence unless you have a local business to support it." About 20 per cent of Atos' business is local, he said.

Third centre in South

Currently, Atos Origin operates from its development centres in Mumbai and Kolkata.

``We are evaluating options to set up a third development centre in the South once our headcount touches the 2,500 mark,'' said Mr Raghavendra Kamat, head of Atos Origin in India. Atos also has operations in low-cost destinations such as China, Brazil and Morocco.

With offshoring going mainstream, European vendors such as Cap Gemini and Atos Origin are increasing their focus on India.

It may be recalled that Cap Gemini recently acquired Kanbay, which gave a major boost to its offshore presence in India.

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