HCL BPO to recruit 40,000 people

By agencies   |   Saturday, 30 April 2005, 19:30 IST
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CHENNAI:HCL Technologies BPO Services Ltd, BPO arm of HCL Technologies, today said it would be expanding its staff strength to about 40,000 by 2009. "The BPO arm started with 30 people in 2000 and today the division has grown into a 5000 people organization. By 2009, the total strength of the BPO arm is expected to touch about 40,000," Chief Operating Officer, N Ranjit HCL BPO said. In the 40,000 people, only about 3000-4000 employees will be working outside India and the remaining staff will be based at Indian cities. He said revenue of the BPO arm is expected to grow by nine times by 2009. The current revenue of HCL BPO is $100 million. Quoting McKinsey report, he said BPO sector was expected to employ about 800,000 people in the next 3-4 years and about 12O million sq ft of space would be created for IT/ITES sector. "Last year we added about 200,000 sq ft of space and this year we will add 300,000 sq ft," he added. "Several countries have been inviting us to set up development centers in their countries," he said adding, "A recent delegation from U.K. has asked us to look at the possibilities of expanding our presence in Northern Ireland." The operations in Northern Ireland are a joint venture with British Telecom (BT) and the JV employs about 800." Ranjit said the company had recently bagged a largest ever BPO contract, which was valued at $165 million, from BT. HCL BPO was the largest BPO in Northern Ireland and rated among the top employers. "Mauritius has also invited and South Africa has asked us to set up a facility by assuring higher bandwidth and offering everything free for one year," he said adding, "Mauritius can be a ideal location to address French speaking markets since there are a lot of French speaking people in Mauritius." "We are looking at expanding our operations in Chennai and other places like Noida, he added. Ranjit said HCL BPO was operating in three verticals -- telecom, retail and banking and financial services. "We are the largest telecom BPO services provider. About 3000 people are working for this vertical alone," he said on the sidelines of the meeting. Presently U.S. contributes to 60 percent of the revenue and Europe contributes the remaining 40 percent. Asked about recruitment, he said most of the people hired were graduates though the company recruited engineers and MBAs. HCL BPO has nine development centers -- six in India, two in Ireland and one in Malaysia.

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