Mastek to ramp up Pune operations

IT solutions and services company Mastek Ltd announced on Tuesday its intentions of ramping up its Pune operations to its full capacity.

The company's Pune centre, which can house 750 employees, currently houses 250. Ashank Desai, chairman, Mastek said "We will be adding another 450-500 people over the next few months."

Attributing the need for the ramp-up to the success of his strategy of bidding jointly, Desai said, "As the multi-billion dollar projects require companies with equal amount of financial backing, Indian companies lose out at the bidding stage itself.

Sharing his concept of 'joint bidding', he says, " Mastek in the last six months has contracted a mega project jointly with the $2 billion group company Capita for setting up a Child Trust Fund (CTF) in the UK and has also bagged a part of the major health scheme project NHS in the UK.

The company is now going a step further and strengthening its relationship with Capita, with which it recently signed a 10-year agreement for providing them its Elixir "� a platform for providing outsourcing in insurance.

"We have signed an agreement with Capita, one of UK's largest outsourcing companies to provide them Elixir for the next 10 years."

Desai also spoke about the company's recent strategic partnership for setting up a dedicated offshore development centre for Euriware, the IT arm of the Euro 228 million group Areva.

"With this we are confident of making an entry in the non-English speaking markets and doing well," said Desai.