Dell uses Perot to sharpen India focus

Acquisition ups local headcount to 21,500.

The acquisition of Perot Systems not only helped Dell India almost double its headcount to touch 21,500 — a quarter of its worldwide employee base — but also make India a delivery hub.

Peter Altabef, President, Dell Services, in a select global media conference call, said his company — the recently-formed unit post the acquisition of Perot Systems — had a total headcount of 44,000, of which 10,500 are in India.

(The Indian arm of Dell Services is a part of the wider Dell India).

Globally, Dell divided its business segments in five categories after acquiring Perot. These comprise large enterprises, small- and medium enterprises, public sector (government, healthcare and education), gadgets (includes smart phones) and services. In India, the company has adopted three focus areas.

“We want to use India as a critical hub for people across the world. In terms of our presence here, we have three areas. One is growing our India presence in terms of the hardware business. Two, entering into education and healthcare segment and then produce customised product and services. And, finally, managing and servicing offerings that we sell here,” said Anurag Jain, vice-president of Dell Services Delivery.

Dell Services has an existing relationship with Max Healthcare in India, since Perot Systems had a 10-year outsourcing deal worth Rs 90 crore with the company. This agreement marked Perot Systems’ first full infrastructure technology outsourcing in the Indian healthcare industry, as well as the company’s first India-based healthcare client.

For the services business, after the initial 90-day integration process, the company combined people from infrastructure development and the managed services team across the organisations and created a global delivery team that could be leveraged for further growth.

Altabef said Dell had “an end-to-end capability — from infrastucture to managed services to cloud computing — which will also help us to move away from the traditional corelation between revenue and headcount growth”.