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Shamik Paul
Vishwanath Kulkarni

Bangalore, Nov. 24 In a bid to boost productivity levels at its India Delivery Centre, Accenture, management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, plans to increase its work hours by an hour daily from January 1.

The company, in an internal communication to employees, said that after much consultation with the leadership and a careful review of the market place, it has decided to extend the work hour for professionals at its India Delivery Centre for technology from 40 hours to 45 hours a week effective January 1, 2009.

The company told its employees that for the past few months it has been looking at how it can continue to best serve clients while enhancing its competitive positioning, and one of the areas it has been looking at is its work hours.

However, Accenture would continue to have a five-day work week. “Doing this (increasing work hours) will enable us to be even more competitive in the market place,” Accenture told its employees.

The India-based competitors of Accenture such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro are now facing uncertain times as customers in the crisis-hit US delay or hold back their spending on deploying new technology, and these vendors are trying to be more competitive.

Accenture officials did not comment on the development. The company employs over 37,000 people across development centres in cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Gurgaon. Its Chairman, Mr Bill Green, said in April that the company would increase India headcount to about 50,000 within a year.

It might be recalled that HCL Technologies Ltd had increased its work hours in October 2006 by 30 minutes from the existing eight-and-a-half hours a day (excluding a half-hour lunch break) to nine hours a day.

The company had said increased work hours will aid employee training besides help the company follow the industry standard of a 45-hour week.

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