Accenture all set to hire 30,000 pros

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2005 12:08:54 AM]

NEW DELHI: The global technology and outsourcing major, Accenture , will be hiring big time in India. It plans to hire 30,000 - 50,000 people in India, China and Phillipines over the next 3 years. The company has already hired 1,600 people in May. While a large percentage of hiring will be in India, the company officials did not specify the numbers. Chennai will be the next big hub for Accenture, with plans to move to a facility with a capacity of 5,000 seats in the city. Currently, it has less than 1,000 people operating out of an incubation facility. “India will be the flagship of our offshore network. It’s a part of our strategy to build strong and diversified network of offshore capabilities. And now that we have more clarity on our Offshore project, we hire aggressively,” says Rueda Basilio, managing partner, Accenture’s Global Delivery Network. Accenture has more than 13,000 people in India currently and is hiring aggressively. According to Basilio, other offshore locations that the firm is looking at hiring are Philippines in Asia, the Czech Republic and Latvia in Eastern and Central Europe and Sao Paolo in Brazil. In Manila, its other delivery centre in Asia, Accenture currently employs about 4,600 people. While 4,000 are in IT Services, 600 people are in the BPO. Overall, there are about 35,000 people in Accenture’s global delivery network across 40 delivery centres and out of that about 24,000 are in India, China, Phillipines, Riga, Bratislava, Malaga, Sao Paulo and Brazil.

The consulting firm will be using the Indian operations to get big time into the space of application development and maintenance, an area where Indian IT firms are well trenched. “It’s a very competitive space, and our offshore centres will allow us to do it successfully. And we will be very aggressive in this space,” says Mr Basilio. He believes that a strong offshore presence will allow Accenture to bundle its services better. Interestingly, most of the big Indian firms garner more than 60% of their revenues from application development and maintenance kind of work. Outsourcing is a growing area for Accenture. In the recently announced third quarter results, the revenue from outsourcing amounted to 39% of revenues and grew by 16%. In the last three quarters, outsourcing has been 39% of the revenues and registered a growth of 17%, a faster growth rate than the firm’s overall growth rate. According to Mr Basilio, the reason why Accenture has decided to move into the offshore space is to increase its competitiveness. “If we are competitive, we win more, and we will get more revenues. Also the margins will be healthier with the cost arbitrage factor coming into play. And finally, the company feels it wants to take advantage of the good quality skill sets of the manpower in these geographies,” he said.