Perot plans acquisitions to add capacity worldwide

Perot Systems is planning acquisitions in India, Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and Mexico, according to an executive of the Plano, Texas, provider of IT services and business solutions.

“We are a global business, and to grow our global footprint, we are going all over the world,” Ross Perot Jr., the company’s chairman, told reporters Monday in Bangalore, India. “We need added capacity worldwide,” he added.

Business is picking up for the company both in the U.S. and other markets, Perot said.

The acquisitions will aim at gaining access to new customers as well to manpower resources in these countries, according to Perot. “We do follow our customers, and we have customers who are now in Eastern Europe and China, and they are asking us to continue to build capabilities there, which we will do,” said Perot. “We also have clients who are looking at Mexico and the rest of South America, and we need to build up capacity there too.”

Perot Systems has already completed two acquisitions in India. In 2003, Perot Systems bought the share of the Indian partner, HCL Technologies, in its joint venture HCL Perot Systems in Noida, India, near Delhi. It also acquired in the same year Vision Healthsource India, a Chennai-based provider of billing and claims solutions for healthcare service providers in the U.S. Both companies have been integrated into the operations of Perot Systems in India.

Perot Systems uses India as a base for offering its clients IT services such as application development and management, application migration, and re-engineering, ERP (enterprise resource planning) services, infrastructure services and testing services. It also offers BPO (business process outsourcing) services from India. About 4,500 employees of the company’s 15,000 staff are in India, said Perot.

Perot is in India to attend a Perot Systems’ board of directors meeting, which is being held for the first time in the country to underscore its importance in the company’s strategy, according to Peter Altabef, president and chief executive officer of Perot Systems.

The company plans to increase its Indian staff, Altabef said. In the last 18 months, Perot System’s business process solutions group, which offers BPO services, has tripled the number of staff in India to 1,400 employees. Its technology services group is expected to grow this year by about 24 percent. The Indian operation will be instrumental in enhancing Perot Systems’ profits, Altabef said.

Referring to the protests in the U.S. against offshore outsourcing, particularly in the run-up to the presidential elections last year, Perot said that the U.S. has reached almost full employment in the IT sector. As the U.S. economy continues to grow, global delivery is the only way to satisfy staffing demands of U.S. corporations, and that is what Perot Systems is doing, he added.