Hinduja Global Solutions to expand in US with health care focus

Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS), the business process management (BPM) arm of the Hinduja Group, is ramping up its headcount in the US, with greater focus on the health care segment even though the firm is witnessing slower growth in India. 

The domestic business of has hit a slower lane of late, owing to ongoing business woes faced by the telecom industry.

In the US, the firm plans to add 600 more people by June 2019 by setting up a new centre in Florida. 

It already has 12 delivery centres in the country, which cumulatively employ around 3,000 professionals servicing various local clients. 

Globally, HGS employs around 45,000 people across seven countries.

“The Indian telecom sector, which has a large headcount, has declined due to increasing churn in the industry. On net basis, our headcount remained flat despite growing in other parts of the world as a bit of downsizing was done in the telecom business," said Partha De Sarkar, chief executive officer of HGS.

Presently, telecom accounts for around 70 per cent of the Bengaluru-based company, while the Indian business contributes around 15 per cent of its overall revenues. Facing demand crunch from the telecom segment, HGS shut down a BPO centre in Siliguri, West Bengal, in January this year. The centre had a staff strength of 250 employees. “Some of the people from this centre have been moved to other centres,” Sarkar said.

On health care, Sarkar said the company would stay focussed on the segment, which contributes close to 50 per cent of its revenue. 

“My core strength is in health care. It is more than a trillion-dollar industry, and one of the biggest spending sectors in the US. In that sense, we are in a sweet spot,” he said. 

After the scrapping of Obamacare in the US, HGS re-purposed its offerings to continue to cater to health care clients. The firm has huge exposure to the health care segment in the US, with the sector accounting for 60 per cent of its overall revenues in the country. 

“We are also looking at increasing the pie of platform business to around 25 per cent in the next three years,” said Sarkar. Around 10 per cent of the revenues come from platforms in the areas like claims management and human resource management. 

For the financial year ended March 31, 2018, HGS reported a revenue of $597 million (approximately 

Rs 38.49 billion).

Consolidation

• Health care is the largest vertical for HGS with a share of 50 per cent
• The US is by far the major contributor to health care revenues
• After Obamacare, firm tweaked offerings to serve US health care clients
• Sees steady uptick in demand from the country