Capgemini sees Kolkata as services hub

IT services and outsourcing company, Capgemini Consulting India Ltd (CCIL) was looking at making Kolkata the retail hub for its worldwide operations, using its Retail Centre of Excellence at its new facility at Rajarhat.

It aimed to raise its workforce to over 22,000 by end-2008 with Kolkata unit having 1000 people within the next few weeks from 850 now.

By the end of 2009, its two facilities in Kolkata would jointly have around 2000 people, said Baru S Rao, chief executive officer, CCIL.

Capgemini planned to employ 40,000 people by 2010, making its Indian operations account for nearly 40 per cent of its global manpower against 26 per cent now.

Capgemini now had 19,800 people in India.

Around 400 of them worked on the domestic sector servicing 10 clients.

The company currently operated from an 80,000 square feet rented premise at Asyst Park in sector-5 of Salt Lake, the IT hub of the city.

It would be shifting to its new premises at the Unitech IT SEZ in a few weeks.

The new 200,000 square feet office would house around 1700 people.

Capgemini will retain its old centre as well.

Capgemini served software development and business process outsourcing (BPO) clients from its existing facility and would add retail clients.

The Kolkata unit has grown three times in strength in a year, claimed Anish Sarkar, vice president and head of sales of CCIL.

The company was open to acquisitions in the BPO space, both in India and overseas, ideally engineering services companies, Rao said.

It was in the process of building a 10,000 people facility at the Mahindra World City near Chennai, and moving to a new facility in Mumbai. The first phase of the Chennai project with 2000 seats would be complete by the second half of 2009.

It currently had operations in six cities in the country. Capgemini expected a five to six per cent growth in global turnover this year.

It reported net global turnover of $6.67 billion for the first half of 2008 with a margin of $510 million.