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French consulting, technology and outsourcing services major Capgemini named Ms Aruna Jayanthi as new Chief Executive Officer for Capgemini India earlier this week.
She assumes charge at a time when India is growing beyond just being a delivery centre into a hub of innovation for Capgemini. With its gross hiring in India exceeding 15,000 in 2010, Ms Jayanthi is confident that Capgemini “will continue hiring plans with the same zest” this year.
Excerpts from an interview:
What was the gross hiring for India delivery operations in 2010?
Our gross hiring numbers in India for 2010 has been over 15,000. The current headcount for Capgemini India is over 30,000. In fact, the gross hiring numbers in India have tripled in 2010 from 2009.
Will India hiring in 2011 be at similar levels as seen in 2010?
The year 2009 was a year of resilience and recovery. As IT became the key driver for growth in 2010, the mood resulted in optimism. Our hiring patterns are a reflection of the growing opportunities in the industry that Capgemini is targeting. Hence, in 2011 we will continue our hiring plans with the same zest as we did in 2010.
Today, Capgemini has close to 30 per cent of its global workforce in India and over next two to three years we expect our employee headcount to become an even bigger part of our global workforce.
How is the BPO delivery from India scaling up?
Capgemini India BPO operations started in 2004-05 with about 200 employees in Bangalore and Mumbai. Today we have centres in five cities – Mumbai, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Chennai and Kolkata. Besides, we also operate a satellite delivery centre at Salem in Tamil Nadu. Capgemini plans to locate about 50 per cent of its total BPO employees to India by 2011-end. Currently Capgemini India's BPO headcount is over 4,500 and we plan to increase that number to 6,000 in the next one year by scaling up at our existing centres including Tier-III locations.
Overall, in the medium term, will India headcount grow faster than other locations such as the US, France, the UK, the Netherlands, China, the Philippines, Argentina, Brazil and Poland? What are the factors that will drive headcount growth here?
India is still our largest delivery centre thanks to the quality of talent available here and will continue to grow very fast. We plan to grow our presence here both to serve existing and new clients' needs.
We have long since realised that we will not come out on top just by offshoring to India. India is growing beyond just a delivery centre and is also the hub of innovation today with over 12 Capgemini centres of expertise in areas such as distribution, life sciences, telecom, retail and business information management.
A recent report by Gartner said that India continues to be the most sought after destination for offshoring services in spite of competition from locations like China and the Philippines? Your view?
Even if India remains the number one destination for offshore, our strategy is to offer our clients a “rightshore” approach. Capgemini's global delivery model uses resources effectively and brings together the right balance of onshore, nearshore and offshore locations. Morocco, for instance, is an attractive “rightshore” option, as well as Poland or Vietnam.
How much of a concern are issues such as rising attrition and wage hike?
Our attrition is per industry standards thus these have not come up as concerns for us in India.
Delivery aspect apart, how is India shaping up from a market perspective? Which are the new verticals that will drive demand for your services?
India is a huge opportunity for the entire IT service industry in general and Capgemini in particular. We are witnessing renewed interest from traditional verticals of manufacturing, captive centres and utilities. We believe, going forward, the Government segment will provide the biggest fillip to the domestic IT industry and Capgemini will be pursuing all significant opportunity with vigour. We also are witnessing interest in platform-based modular services offered on a pay-as-you-go pricing model.
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