Capita to increase India headcount

In the midst of job cuts and deferring of hiring plans by the Indian IT and ITeS firms, Capita India--arm of UK’s largest BPO firm Capita-- plans to add 1,000 employees in the next 12 months. This is a part of the ongoing initiative taken by the company to move work offshore.

Apart from three centres in Mumbai, the company has set a centre in Pune with a capacity of 600 with an investment of £2.5 million (over Rs 20 crore).

Capita India has an annualised revenue of £2.5 billion. It recently completed the acquisition of Prudential’s captive arm in Mumbai (Vikhroli), that takes care of the life and pension work, for £25 million (around Rs 210 crore), this will also add 1,400 employees to Capita’s workforce.

“Capita has over 30,000 people working for it and we have almost 55-60 per cent of the UK insurance market. We have included to offer a blended model for outsourcing with UK and offshore component to it.

As a result of the pound 3 billion new work that Capita is bidding a substantial amount of this will be offshored to India,” said Paul Pindar, Chief Executive, Capita Group.

“If you look at our India centre of the 3,000, two-thirds are working on the financial sector,” added Pindar.

The current financial turmoil in the US has not impacted the UK BPOs business growth plan. While acquiring captive is becoming a trend Pundar does not sees that as a way to grow in India.

“We are looking at a few global deals or contracts in which the India centre is also a part. But we are not looking at acquiring any standalone captives,” Pindar added. However, for Pundar the main concern remains transitioning work to India as soon as possible.