Capgemini to expand its offshore services

French IT services company Capgemini will have more staff in India than any other country by the end of this year, as it expands its offshore services delivery from that nation.

With about 19,000 staff, the company’s largest operation by headcount is currently in France, but that will change as Capgemini plans to have over 19,000 staff in India by the end of this year, said Salil Parekh, executive chairman of Capgemini India on Thursday

The company, which has 15,000 staff in India currently, plans to expand further in the country to employ 40,000 workers by 2010, Parekh said. The majority of the staff will work in IT services with the rest in BPO (business process outsourcing), he added.

A number of large Indian and multinational IT services companies, including IBM and Accenture, have been hiring significant numbers of staff in India to take advantage of lower employment costs.

Accenture, for example, said in January it will have more staff in India than in any other country by the end of its fiscal year on Aug. 31. The company’s staff in India will increase to 35,000 in August, up by 52 percent from a year earlier, with the number of employees more than those in the U.S., which will have a little over 30,000 staff.

The large-scale hiring by services companies has led to a shortage of quality staff and an increase in average salaries in India. However, Capgemini does not anticipate any obstacles to its hiring plans. The company’s recruitment team is equipped to hire about 1,000 employees a month, both from university campuses and the services industry, Parekh said.

“India remains cost-effective, and we haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary yet,” Parekh said. In addition to India’s lower staff costs, the country remains attractive because it offers quality staff and Capgemini can scale operations to a level not possible in many other countries, said Parekh.

By 2010, Indian staff will account for 70 percent of Capgemini’s offshore services, down from 80 percent today, as the company ramps up operations in other countries like Argentina, Morocco, Romania, the Philippines, and Vietnam. China will also continue to serve as a key location. The company has about 1,000 staff in China, and will likely increase staff levels there three-fold by 2010, Parekh said.

Capgemini also gained new business and staff in India through acquisitions. Last year, the company bought a 51 percent stake in Unilever India Shared Services, a finance and accounting BPO operation owned by consumer-goods maker Unilever Group. This business, which becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Capgemini by 2008, is a key center for the company’s finance and accounting BPO practice, Parekh said.

In February, Capgemini purchased Kanbay International, an IT services firm in Rosemont, Illinois, to boost its services delivery from India, and its business in the financial-services sector. The Kanbay acquisition brought Capgemini a number of customers in the U.S., Parekh said.

As it grows in India, Capgemini plans to expand its business in areas such as infrastructure management, ERP (enterprise resource planning) development and maintenance, and non-voice BPO, Parekh said.