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Shamik Paul

Bangalore, Sept. 22 French financial services group Societe Generale said it would more than double the headcount at its Global Solution Centre in Bangalore and invest about €5 million to develop a new campus.

The turmoil in the financial markets has prompted many banks to cut operational costs, and has also given an added boost to Societe Generale’s goal to expand the Centre in India, said Mr Ramesh Kumar, Chief Executive, Societe Generale Global Solution Centre.

Companies, faced with tighter budgets due to the financial meltdown in the US, are expected to offshore more work to less expensive destinations such as India to cut costs.

The company at present has about 900 employees in Bangalore. It said the number would touch 2,500 within the next three years. The new centre would be operational by the first quarter of 2009. It would initially have 50,000 sq.ft. of space, which later could be scaled up to 2 lakh sq.ft.

The company also plans to open a second global solution centre either in Chennai or Pune by early 2010. The expansion is a part of the programme to develop the Global Solution Centre as a strategic centre for the group by 2012.

Mr Kumar said the centre would develop high-end consulting capabilities and a set of core competencies in both business knowledge and technology. The consulting team, with knowledge of Societe Generale’s core banking products and business expansion plans worldwide, would play an advisory role on cost savings and on developing newer products and services.

Mr Kumar said the centre would also create core competence teams for the various business verticals of Societe Generale such as corporate and investment banking, consumer finance and retail banking, and others. There would be teams on technology such as Java, business intelligence software and testing methodologies as well.

The Global Solution Centre works in close collaboration with the dedicated IT teams (based in London, Paris and New York) for the various business verticals of the bank. It works on software product development, software enhancement, software testing methodologies and re-engineering of existing IT solutions that the bank uses, Mr Kumar added.

The centre also handles some middle-office and back-office jobs that are more analytical.

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