Reuters to shift 'core' work to India

Wednesday, 06 August 2003, 19:30 IST
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LONDON: The rush among Western business houses to move work to India to save costs continues with news and information provider Reuters planning to shift much of its core work to Hyderabad or Bangalore. Reuters' move is different from others because the company intends to shift its "core" operations to India, and not back office operations. As in the case with other companies who have beaten the cost-cutting path to India, Reuters' move will also involve redundancies. According to BBC, among staff affected by Reuters' move are 350 based in Tiverton in southwest England, another 65 in Edinburgh in Scotland as well as a further 600 or so in New York and White Plains in the U.S., Singapore and several other offices around the world. Reuters sources said the announcement was already hitting morale and that some staff are planning to jump ship before they are pushed. Company documents suggest it is making contingency plans for large-scale redundancies in the wake of the announcement. In them, the company insists it has no choice but to save money with the switch to India in order to remain competitive. Reuters is reported to be in the middle of a 3,000-staff redundancy and cost-cutting programme dubbed Fast Forward, outlined at a company-wide day of meetings on July 11. A Reuters spokeswoman said no decision had been taken yet on what, if any, functions would move to India to supplement the new products to be developed there, but that an announcement would be made by mid-September. Any job losses, she said, would be included in the 3,000 already planned into Fast Forward. The Fast Forward programme is an attempt to keep up with the burgeoning sales of competitors Bloomberg and Thomson Financial.
Source: IANS
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