IBM opens Pune centre to tap non-English speaking clients

The company has launched a designated Language Translation Services Centre (LTSC) in Pune, which will get its new clients from non-English-speaking countries and also handle the flow of communication between overseas clients and development teams based in India.

LTSC would act as a nodal platform for client-interaction and work as a facilitator between the clients and the technical teams of IBM, IBM India Vice-President Rajesh Nambiar told Business Standard on Monday.

IBM has also launched its new global delivery centre (GDC) located at Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, Hinjewadi, Pune, which has a seating capacity of 2,000.

"LTSC will offer quality language translation services for clients and professionals at all the IBM GDCs. This includes assistance in document translation such like emails, web pages and contracts. It would lead to improved and efficient communication from French, German, Spanish and Italian to English. We plan to start more such centres in Asia and Europe later this year," Nambiar added.

The company, which has more than 73,000 employees in India, has signed partnerships with educational institutions to facilitate LTSC operations.

"We are definitely not into translation services business. The centre would help us interact better with clients from the non-English-speaking countries. A core group comprising technical and non-technical staffers having excellent spoken levels, would be formed for each language. This group would work as a facilitator between the client and the development team of IBM," said Sanjay Rishi, global automotive industry leader, IBM Global Services.

"We already have experts in these launguages with us while a few more would be hired. We would have online language training programmes for staffers as per requirements," Rishi added.

When asked about the present business processes that IBM follows for non-English markets, Rishi said, "At present, we are getting the translation done either from clients or from some local overseas agencies. If done through LTSC, the costs would come down. In addition, the work would happen in an organised and integrated fashion," he claimed.

In the near future, the company is eyeing massive growth in Germany followed by markets that deal with French and Spanish. "Japanese is another language that would be added to the LTSC, but not at this stage," he said.

The officials, however, did not disclose the exact number of people working with Pune's LTSC. "It would be anything from 50 to 100," Nambiar said.