Atos Origin bets big on Indian unit

The Indian centre of Atos Origin, the ¤5.8-billion France-based IT services firm, is set to become the biggest hub for the IT giant other than France, with the company targeting a headcount of 6,000-7,000 by the end of 2010.

Atos Origin India Chief Executive Officer Milind Kamat said the reason for this growth is the increased offshoring trend among its customers in the UK, Germany and The Netherlands. The Indian centre has about 3,300 people currently. "The next two quarters are going to be crucial for us as much as it is for the others. This might impact the hiring numbers a bit, but otherwise growth for us will be same. This is more so because of our focus on India as a market as well as the increased offshoring activity that we see from our European clients," he added.

Kamat noted that while a majority of the work of the UK clients takes place at its India centre, their customers from Germany and Netherlands too "are also looking at this to introduce cost-efficiencies. We started to serve our German clients from India only last year and we now have nine of our large clients operations in India, similarly over 50 per cent of our Netherlands clients are being offered services from India. We see these numbers growing in 2009."

Atos Origin India also serves the Indian market. Currently 25-30 per cent of its sales and marketing budgets come from this region. Telecom, utilities, events and manufacturing are some of the sectors that Atos Origin is focussing on in India.

Kamat explains the company has been bringing in some of its solutions that have been used in the European market.