Accenture to double headcount in India

Accenture, the $15.5-billion global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing major, is planning to double its headcount to 50,000 in Manila, China and India by 2008.

This was announced by Sandeep Arora, lead executive, Accenture delivery centre for technology, India, while inaugurating its ninth delivery centre in Pune.

The new Pune facility takes the number of the Accenture's Indian locations to five. The company is already present in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

"We will have a capacity of 1,600 by August-September at our centre in Magarpatta city. The Pune delivery centre will provide application outsourcing and systems integration services across the full range of technology capabilities. The centre has already started work on a communications and high-technology project," Arora said.

Emphasising that the company is growing aggressively in all its current centres and is opening new centres in cities it is present, besides looking at more cities, Arora said, "The company has grown from 4,000 in 2003 to more than 17,500 now. Last year, we grew at 60 per cent and expect to grow at 50-55 per cent this year as well."

Explaining the significance of such growth, Rekha Menon, lead-India geographic services, said, "India is our second-largest operational base globally. We have 1,29,000 employees, of which 44,000 are based at 40 of our global delivery centres spread across 30 countries. Of the 44,000 employees, 24,000 are based in China, Manila and India, of which India has 17,500 employees "� 13.5 per cent of the company's staff. We expect to grow in this geography to have 50,000 employees by 2008."

The company provides the full range of services spread across its five key domains "� communications and high technology, accounting for 26 per cent of its revenues; financial services, 22 per cent; government, 14 per cent; products, 23 per cent; and resources, 15 per cent "� in India while servicing 200 of its clientele from here.