The Hindu Business Line : IT: One out of six is an Indian

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Chennai Feb. 16 Every sixth employee in the workforce of top eight global IT companies is an Indian. These eight IT majors employ around 9,90,000 people, of whom 1,62,000 are Indians. Moreover, going by the projections and statements of the top brass of these companies, the proportion of Indians in the global IT workforce is only set to increase.

As of December 2006, IBM was the biggest IT multinational with around 53,000 employees in India as against its global workforce of 3.30 lakh. And, according to a recent report by AMR Research, IBM India expects to have 1,00,000 employees by the end of 2010. This means that the company will have to add an average of 1,000 people a month over the next 48 months. During his India visit in June, the IBM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Samuel J. Palmisano, announced that the global major would triple its investments to $6 billion over the next three years.

Emerging markets

In a recent call with analysts to discuss the company's quarterly financial results, Mr Mark Loughridge, Chief Financial Officer, IBM, said its business from emerging markets of China, India, Brazil and Russia together grew 18 per cent. India and Russia both posted growth of over 30 per cent each while China grew at 18 per cent and Brazil grew at 9 per cent. These four countries contributed $4.5 billion of revenue, up 16 per cent year-on-year without the divested personal computer business in last year's results.

China, India, Russia and Brazil are among the fastest growing IT markets in the world.

"Over the next four years, we expect them to grow at more than two times the worldwide rate with an opportunity of over $150 billion by 2010. We are investing to extend our leadership in emerging markets," he said.

According to Mr Ron Rittenmeyer, President and COO, EDS, which has 20,000 employees in India, the company's focus is on optimising its workforce through strong offshore capabilities. At the end of calendar 2006, the company had around 32,000 people, having more than doubled the headcount in the last 12 months.

`Primary beneficiary'

"India is a primary beneficiary, as you know, but we continue to migrate workforces to other cost advantage areas in Brazil, Argentina, China and Hungary," he told analysts at a conference call. It may be recalled that in mid-2006, EDS acquired a majority stake in MphasiS BFL, an applications and business process outsourcing company.

The case is similar with Accenture with its Chief Operating Officer, Mr Stephen Rohleder, expecting around 65,000 employees in Global Delivery Network by the end of this fiscal year — with about half of them in India.

"India is truly the crown jewel of our global delivery network, which is the largest network of its kind in the world. Our global delivery network has more than 53,000 professionals in 44 delivery centres spanning 29 cities on five continents, as well as at numerous other Accenture and client locations around the world."

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