Genpact all set to enter West Asia to serve local clients

Genpact, the country’s largest business process outsourcing (BPO) company, is spreading its wings to West Asia. The company is exploring Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon for setting up centres to serve local clients.

“We have customers in financial services in West Asia because of our relationship with GE. Though we are servicing these clients from India as of now, we will need a local Arabic speaking delivery centre there. Egypt is a good option because it has an old and great education system, along with a good English, French and Arabic speaking population. Jordan and Lebanon could be the other places,” said N V Tyagarajan, chief operating officer of Genpact. The company has inked a contract with Sabic, a Saudi Arabian chemicals company, to manage its analytics and supply chain services. It has also signed contracts with two clients in the financial services sector in West Asia.

“We are also looking for a person to lead the company’s West Asia operations and will soon announce that,” he said.

“Egypt is emerging as an offshore destination and is in competition to India. The investment in the centre should be around half a million dollars (Rs 3 crore),” said an analyst.

Besides West Asia, Genpact is looking at Brazil to set up delivery centres in the next one year. “There is a huge market for both global clients and local Chinese and Indian companies in Brazil. As of now, we have a little presence there, in places where the Brazilian languages are not required. We are looking at Sao Paulo and Tier-II cities in Brazil to set up the centre,” Tyagarajan had earlier said.

The investments in these new centres will be part of the company’s plan to spend around five per cent of its revenues on capital expenditure that includes both replacement and new expenditure. The company will start with 50-100 people in these centres and then scale them up. Headcount in these centres will grow like the BPO’s Guatemala centre, which will soon have 1,000 employees, and the Manila centre, where it will have 2,000.