ThoughtWorks to shift 50% workforce to India

Five years ago, ThoughtWorks, a transnational IT consultancy firm, opened a development centre in India with only 1 per cent of the work being carried out here.

Today, nearly 200 of ThoughtWorks' total worldwide staff strength (800) work at the firm's two development centres in Bangalore and Pune. By the end of 2008, the firm intends to have more than 50 per cent of its workforce in India.

"Our growth in India has been dramatic. It is very clear that the world is dominated by India in the IT sector. In years to come, there is going to be a huge explosion of business in India and China. It can happen both on product and customer sides. Our presence in India will go up significantly, with the Bangalore and Pune centres catering to global as well as Indian customers," said ThoughtWorks CEO Neville Roy Singham.

In a year's time, ThoughtWorks will have 350 professionals working in India. "We will have 230 working at Bangalore and another 120 in Pune. Next year, we will open the third development centre in India, preferably Bangalore. When the third development centre becomes operational, India will be home to 50 per cent of our total workforce," Singham stated.

ThoughtWorks, headquartered in the US, has offices in other countries like Australia, Canada, China and the UK. In addition to providing application delivery services, ThoughtWorks is into consulting on adoption of Agile (conceptual framework for undertaking software engineering projects) methods to increase the efficiency and productivity of teams. It also has practices in .Net, Java/J2EE and Ruby for various industries.

Neville pointed out that Bangalore in particular is emerging as a strategic development centre for the firm.

"Professionals here work on almost all the global projects. It is mandatory for every ThoughtWorks employee to have a stint in Bangalore, which is emerging as the next innovation centre. The Bangalore development centre will network innovators from ThoughtWorks' offices worldwide," Singham said.

The firm, which clocked $100 million revenue, intends to take it up to $120 million this year.

"We want India to contribute 20 per cent of the revenues. We are targetting captive IT firms (software system integrators) and the local business, which is adopting IT infrastructure for growth and expansion," he added.

Singham has spent 20 years in social activism in the US. "My ultimate aim is to make ThoughtWorks an employee-owned global firm. Every single employee, starting from the receptionist to the top, have to become equal owners of the firm. I will realise that objective in a couple of years when our investors exit the firm," he said.