Volkswagen sets up regional competency centre in Pune

To cater to the global IT requirements of the group across brands and regions

Volkswagen Group India today inaugurated the Volkswagen Group IT Regional Competency Centre at Hinjewadi Tech Park in Pune.

The centre will cater to the global operations of all the brands of Volkswagen Group.

The Regional Competency Centre (RCC) is expected to bring in foreign revenue besides creating high value employment for IT professionals, said the company.

“With the RCC, Volkswagen Group India has taken the next step in expanding its operations in India. We already have the expertise in building cars for the world. We will now also provide IT support to global locations through our centre and underline our belief in India with this long term commitment,” said Mahesh Kodumudi, Chief Representative, Volkswagen Group India.

Information Technology (IT) has become an integral part of automotive industry. IT requirements in the automotive industry begin right from conceptualising future projects to sourcing of parts to production processes all the way to sales and after sales service.

To cater to these integrated and sophisticated IT requirements and to insource business critical process knowledge and technological know-how in the long run, Volkswagen Group IT has set up this RCC.

The RCC will be the third one under the Volkswagen Group worldwide with the first two being in Europe and North America.

This setup in Pune will support the Volkswagen Group across all brands and regions. Volkswagen Group IT RCC, Pune currently employees over 100 IT professionals and plans to grow significantly in the coming years.

"Our Group IT Regional Competency Centre is a strategic extended workbench of Volkswagen Group IT here in India. With its setup we aim to insource Group Processes and Technical Knowledge in the long term. The focus is to build a highly competent IT team to support Group IT with the ever growing requirement in the Volkswagen Group and to develop in-house knowledge for further expansion worldwide," said Sidharth Yadav, Regional CIO Asia-Pacific Volkswagen Group.

With its headquarters in Pune, Maharashtra, the Volkswagen Group is represented by five passenger car brands in India: Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Skoda, and Volkswagen.

The Volkswagen Group has been present in India for the last 14 years and began its India journey with the entry of the Skoda brand in 2001.

The Audi brand and Volkswagen brand entered India in 2007, while Porsche brand and Lamborghini brand followed in 2012. Milan Kumar, Head of Volkswagen Group IT RCC, added, "India has a huge and highly qualified IT talent pool. With our RCC here in Pune we would like to utilise this potential towards cost-effective and secure IT developments for the whole Volkswagen Group. It will further add value to the core business of Volkswagen Group and deliver world class results."

Volkswagen Group India has over 25 models in India and 262 dealerships and is operating through two plants -- Pune and Aurangabad. The Pune Plant has a manufacturing capacity of 130,000 cars per year (in current two-shift system) and is currently manufacturing Volkswagen Polo and Vento and Skoda Rapid. The Aurangabad Plant caters to various premium and luxury models of Audi,Skoda and Volkswagen sold in India and has an annual capacity of approximately 89,000.