Ahmedabad set to become Vodafone's services hub

Company to re-locate 1500 employees to the city.

In a bid to increase efficiency, telecom major Vodafone Essar is set to relocate over 1,500 of its employees to Ahmedabad from all over the country.

With Vodafone planning to make Ahmedabad its services hub, the city is all set to see an influx of telecom professionals from across 23 circles of the company. What’s more, Vodafone also plans to integrate certain international services at the hub.

Vodafone, which is setting up a shared-service centre in Ahmedabad at an investment of Rs 200 crore, had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government for this purpose.

“Around 1,500-2,000 existing as well as fresh personnel will be moved to the upcoming shared- service centre in Ahmedabad in a phased manner. The centre is being set up with an aim to integrate all departments, including finance and human resources, from across 23 circles where the company is present.

Initially, migration from eight circles will take place, followed by other circles. While in the first phase, all the domestic circles will be integrated, in the second phase service departments of some of the international circles will also be brought here,” said Sunil Sood, operations director (west), Vodafone.

Talking about the upcoming centre, Sood said, “The move will obviously increase our efficiency since several departments will be centralised. Ahmedabad is the ideal location since it offers cheaper real estate apart from the fact that we have a large presence in Gujarat and the state doesn’t have any infrastructure problem. Moreover, majority of the area will be occupied by the finance department and Ahmedabad is a good source of finance professionals. We examined various centres and finally zeroed in on Ahmedabad.”

Vodafone Essar has around 7.5 million subscribers in Gujarat. According to Sood, the first phase of the project is likely to get completed by 2010, while the deadline for the second phase has not yet been determined.