First Consulting outlines India expansion

First Consulting Group, a $265 million US-based Nasdaq-listed healthcare IT services firm, is looking to expand its India footprint.

The company which runs a wholly-owned software subsidiary in Bangalore is looking at hiking its employee count during the present year.

The company presently employs close to 700 personnel and recently entered into a new campus with a capacity for close to 1,100. FCG has invested close to Rs 10 crore for this expansion and is looking at avenues for growing its India business.

R Subramaniam, MD, FCG India said that the company is also looking at tapping the Indian market for its range of healthcare solutions.

"The market is so big in the US that we haven't yet looked at the Indian market. Recently, we forayed into the Middle East market, and we are exploring options for our solutions in India." FCG offers an array of services like Health Plan (health insurance), Health Delivery (hospital management), Life Sciences (documentation required in research) and Software Services for the healthcare industry.

"There has been a recent wave in the Indian hospital industry to go in for global best practices and this has prompted us to look into the Indian market. A lot of hospitals are automating their processes and it is indeed an exciting market for us," Subramaniam added.

In addition to IT services, FCG India has been developing mass in the BPO arm and is looking at ramping up in India.

"We are like a shared service centre in India and we report into various verticals. The BPO operations is not a standalone division but is integrated into verticals like insurance, delivery and life sciences," he noted.

FCG India is also looking at taking on more responsibilities of putting together more building blocks for its software products from the Indian centre.

"The core of development is still in our US head office, but we are slowly proving to take on more critical work. The skill sets here in India are proving to be good and we should be hiring for such projects pretty soon," Subramaniam highlighted.