Salesforce's plans to hire 1,000 professionals in Hyderabad on track: India head

Cloud-enabled software firm Salesforce's plans to hire 1,000 professionals in Hyderabad by 2020 are well "on track", with the company looking at India as among its growth markets, a top country executive has said.

Salesforce had established a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Hyderabad in 2016, in line with its expansion blueprint for India.

Asked if the company is proceeding as per plans on the Hyderabad hiring targets, Sunil Jose, Senior Vice President and Country Leader at Salesforce India, said: "Those plans are very much on track. We have picked up additional real estate out there so that is looking good for us".

Overall, the company's India headcount has already crossed 1,000 employee mark across all functions, Jose told PTI in a recent interview.

Stating that Hyderabad centre forms an integral part of the global operations, Jose said the location houses product development team, industry team, and customer support group, among others.

"We are doing a couple of things out of Hyderabad. We have got the product development team, we have the industry team over there, which is working on various verticals. We have the customer support group and then we have a lot of other functions. So, Hyderabad contributes to everything that we do globally," he said.

Terming India as a growth market for the business software firm (known for its customer relationship management solutions), Jose said that companies cutting across sectors are either "on the verge of digital transformation or in some phase of digital transformation".

"India market is one of the fastest. While we don't break up client details...if we were to look at the sheer number of clients we would have tripled in the last two years. This is clearly the size we are talking about," Jose said.

The company said it is finding traction in sectors like banking, financial services, manufacturing, hi-tech, retail, as well as the small and medium enterprises.

"Small and Medium Enterprises are pretty much looking at adopting the cloud. So, India is far ahead of the game when it comes to technology adoption and as an organisation we have been one of those that have been born in the cloud...," he said.