German IT consulting company Rheinbrucke has opened its first overseas service development and delivery centre in Chennai to cater to growing business of its clients in Europe and West Asia. The 15,000 sq. ft facility capable of accommodating 450 employees wasnaugurated on Wednesday. The company has started with 70 employees, but the headcount will be raised to 100 by this year-end, and doubled every year for the next five years, says Kumar Mallampalli, Executive Director at the wholly-owned Indian subsidiary Rheinbrucke IT Consulting Pvt Ltd.

The step to set up Indian operations was taken early this year as enterprise resource planning company EPICOR is upgrading its ERP software, prompting its partner Rheinbrucke to expand its services team. The India plan was also due to a growth in the European firm’s consulting business.

“In Chennai, we have a lot of IT experts compared to Europe, where we have the majority of operations,” says Jeorg Pirron, Executive Board Member at Rheinbrucke. The delivery centre, besides catering to the West Asian market, will also deliver intellectual property services for European clients.

“The start-up ecosystem in Germany is very vibrant, with Small and Medium Companies accounting for 64 per cent of business in German-speaking Europe,” says Vetri Selvan, Managing Partner at Rheinbrucke.

Though the India facility will export IT services, the company decided against setting it up in a special economic zone in view of the projected small volumes, said Mallampalli.

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