Battle on headcount in IT cos
By agencies   |   Friday, 18 November 2005, 20:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
NEW DELHI: As competition in IT offshore space intensifies, foreign players do not want to be left behind in the number game and are scaling-up their India headcount. While the Indian firms such as Infosys and HCL Technologies' added 26,012 employees, and 17,627 employees respectively between 2001-02 and 2004-05 for IT services business, leading global IT services companies - IBM and CSC added close to 17,000 and 1,500 employees, respectively during the same period. Accenture, which had 4,300 professionals in December 2003, by August 2005 the numbers have gone up to 16,000 at its India centers- majority of them in IT services and BPO segment and some in consulting. Accenture’s Head of India Delivery Center Network, Chet Kamat said, “Currently we have 24,000 people in India, China and the Philippines and expecting the headcount to increase by 50,000 employees over the next three years, based on client demand." CSC plans to scale up its management and physical infrastructure ability by hiring at least 10,000-12,000 employees by the end of the company's financial year in 2007 - a substantial increase considering that it had about 750 employees less than three years back. Since then, the strength of the company in India has been rising steadily, from 1,350 employees at the end of 2003 to 2,250 by end of 2004. It has 4,200 employees in the country at present. CSC India’s Managing Director, Tom Kenyon, feels that the company today offers multiple advantages compared to its Indian counterparts. “We can also bring large-scale full end-to-end services - management consulting, system integration, application management and outsourcing and infrastructure services to our clients,” he added.

siliconindia