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In less than two years of its foray into Coimbatore, Ugam Solutions, provider of advanced analytics and online marketing services, is gearing up to expand operations here by stepping up its facility.
(The company opened its delivery centre at the Coimbatore Hi-tech Infrastructure Limited (CHIL) IT Park in May 2009).
“We intend to take another 30,000 sq ft of available space adjacent to our existing office here. This expansion would up Ugam's occupancy level to 55,000 sq ft (from the current 25,000 sq ft) and the seating capacity to 800+. Work is on and operations from the expanded facility would go live from September,” said the company's Chief Executive Officer, Mr Sunil P. Mirani.
Ugam has, in this period, trebled its headcount (in Coimbatore) to 360. The company is confident of operating at its optimal capacity (800 seats) in 2 years. “At the current pace of expansion, our team size in this location would surpass Ugam's headcount in Mumbai. We are around 1,100 today, including the 360 employed in Coimbatore,” Mr Mirani told Business Line.
Operational cost
While conceding that the decision to establish office in a tier II location such as Coimbatore was initially believed to reduce operational cost, the Ugam Chief Executive, said: “it terms of geographical redundancy, it has been good, but in talent availability, we registered ‘mixed' success.”
Elaborating his observation, he said, “here employability is accentuated by more degrees tagged to the name rather than preparing oneself to be industry-ready. While consistency matters, one's score in examination alone does not count and this is the first disconnect. We have had to put more training effort than our initial expectation,” he added.
To short circuit the effort that went into training, Ugam has tied up with KGISL, for on-the-job training during the last semester of the graduation programme.
attrition
Attrition has been another issue of concern for the company. “We did not anticipate this initially, but the entry level churn is on the rise, possibly because there are more options today. Entry level churn is no less than Mumbai,” observed Mr Mirani.
The projected outlay on this expansion is estimated at Rs 5 crore. The company is understood to have invested about Rs 2.5-3 crore towards its existing set up here.
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