Kenexa invests $3 million in India

Investment includes acquisition cost of Hyderabad-based Oramasters

The investment included the acquisition of Oramasters, a Hyderabad-based company specialising in offering solutions around Oracle products.

Addressing a press conference in the city, Rudy Karsan, CEO Kenexa, said that the company which provided software for talent acquisition and performance management and services for employment process outsourcing (EPO) was expanding its presence in Hyderabad.

"We have 87 people and have 10,000 sq ft of space in India and we expect to grow our headcount in India this year," Karsan said. The company which was founded in 1987 has more than 500 employees worldwide and has more than 100 Fortune 500 customers as well half of the Dow 30 companies as customers.

"We expect to grow our overall revenues by 10 per cent this year and we work with 200 preferred partners across the world," Karsan said.

The Kenexa India office is the global development centre for the facilitation of technology innovation, and the definition and implementation of quality initiatives for Kenexa products.

Kenexa according to Karsan had finished the initial phase of a major expansion and had now begun the second phase, which would include addressing the human capital needs of recruiting solutions for multinational companies and Indian corporations.

The company, according to Raghuveer Sakuru, managing director of the Indian operations of Kenexa, said that the company had achieved sales of Rs 2 crore in the Indian and Middle East markets and expected to touch revenues of Rs 6 crore from these two markets in fiscal 2005.

The company has also brought on board Rama Velpuri, the ex-CEO of Oramasters and a former executive director of Oracle, as its CTO and a member of the executive team of Kenexa.

In October last year, Kenexa had been recognised by Forbes Magazine's Fall 2003 'Best of the Web' issue in the human resources category.

Forbes cited Kenexa for its web-based application called Kenexa recruiter and employment process outsourcing services that enable organisations to improve and align their talent, better manage the complete employee lifecycle, increase business performance and reduce costs.