Tesco strains on creating business impact

Bangalore: Instead of having a headcount expansion, world's third largest retailer Tesco is striving to create a much greater business impact in its shared services centre in Bangalore. The company has already achieved a critical mass in India, reports the Economic Times.

Tesco's Hindustan Service Centre (HSC), which commenced operations in Bangalore in 2004, has a headcount of 3,500 with activities spanning across IT, financial services and other business functions.

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"We are shifting our focus from headcount growth to creating business impact, on how we can make many processes of Tesco better and simpler," said Sandeep Dhar, CEO, Tesco HSC.

About 60 percent of the company's activities are focused on IT, along with the rest spreading across finance and accounting, helpdesk services, architectural services, online marketing, analytics and content management.

The Bangalore centre is expected to bring efficiency in the company's global operations. For instance, the entire payroll processing of the retailer in the U.K., comprising around 2.7 lakh employees, is done out of Bangalore.

"Over the last five years, Tesco HSC has built enough domain expertise around the retail segment, making it a very key centre. When Tesco made a foray into the U.S. market, the Bangalore centre was actively involved from day one of the operations," informed Dhar.

This does not imply that the company is slowing down its recruitment process, as it looks to raise headcount by 20 percent every year. The bulk of this hiring will be largely at the entry level segment.

The Bangalore centre provides services to the English speaking business regions like the U.K, the U.S. and Ireland. The company is also evaluating the possibilities of extending its reach to other non-English speaking countries where the retailer has its operations.