Hewitt buys out local JV, shifts Asia-Pac business
By siliconindia staff writer   |   Monday, 03 November 2003, 20:30 IST
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COIMBATORE: Hewitt Associates has acquired 100% stake in its Indian joint venture, and India's largest human resource BPO, India Life Hewitt (ILH). Following the acquisition, Hewitt has begun migrating some of its Asia Pacific HR operations to India; US operations are expected to follow suit. ILH managing director, Manish Sabharwal, had confirmed in Wharton School's online resource — Knowledge@Wharton — that Hewitt, a $1.8bn human resource outsourcing and consulting firm, had raised its holding to 100% from around 40%. Previously, employees and venture capitalist View group held the remaining stake in ILH. More than resources, the allure appears to be Hewitt's organisational software. "The technology treadmill in HR is becoming so hard for companies to stay on. For us, it would have been impossible without Hewitt,” Sabharwal said. “Hewitt's annual IT spend alone is estimated at $350m," he added. Moreover, ILH’s 3.5-lakh strong employee handling base in 400 companies across several countries will be integrated with Hewitt’s global base of 16m employees. For Hewitt, ILH brings with it payroll services, HR management, and also benefits consulting and investment management. In fact, in May '03, Hewitt entered the payroll-processing arena with the acquisition of $40m Cyborg Worldwide headquartered in Chicago. With Cyborg's acquisition, Hewitt became the only organisation to offer total HR outsourcing services — HR, benefits, and payroll — with complete HR consulting expertise. As part of the transition, Cyborg's Asia Pacific operations are being integrated with the Singapore-based HR services firm, Embrace, a company ILH acquired in April. IT operations of Embrace are already housed in India, while non-marketing and client service operations like gross to net in payroll, claims processing and flex-plan administration are being relocated to India. With the HR BPO segment maturing, Sabharwal feels these moves would allow Hewitt and ILH to focus on the right variables. (Source: Economic Times)

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