THE TIMES OF INDIA

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2003

Accenture to double headcount

SATYA PRAKASH SINGH

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

BANGALORE: Accenture, the $11 billion IT services giant, will be doubling
its employee strength in India in just six months. The company, which had
2,200 professionals in May this year in its Indian subsidiary, will be
crossing the 4,000-mark by the end of this November.

Martin I Cole, managing partner (outsourcing) of Accenture, who heads the
20,000-people-strong outsourcing practice of the company, says this rate of
growth will continue for some time. "Our outsourcing and BPO activities will
account for most of the hirings," he said. Accenture has three business
units -- consulting, computer software development and outsourcing -- based
in Bangalore and Mumbai.

Cole said the doubling of capacity in a period of six months will be
organic, though the company is also exploring acquisition possibilities. He
said the new recruits will be a mix of freshers from campuses and laterals.

The company, one of the top five IT services companies globally, is also
considering expansion to a third location in India in a couple of years. The
places being considered are New Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad. Accenture
today is present in 42 locations across the world. "We will look at areas
with large numbers of skilled manpower. We are not really concerned about
costs and quality of facility," Pankaj Vaish, India head of Accenture
(outsourcing), said.

Accenture in India has also been moving into front office work such as doing
clinical data management for its pharma clients. Accenture's pharma team
here, which consists of doctors, dentists and biologists, analyses data from
tests and helps its pharma client to gain `time-to-market' advantage.
"Normally, for a BPO, back office activities are the target, but we are
beginning to spot opportunities in front office activities as well," Cole
said.

To counter the high attrition rate prevailing in the BPO industry, Vaish
said his company offers options to its employees to change their job role to
reduce monotony of work. For example, someone doing insurance can move to
accounting or somebody in a call centre can shift to the IT help desk.
Accenture imparts six months of training to the new recruits.

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