Paris-headquartered IT company Capgemini already has a third of its employees working in India. It's now reviving its offshore consulting play, as also strengthening its traditional offshoring capabilities here. The $13.5-billion Capgemini began its operations in India in 1998 offering consulting services, but later focused on IT services. Capgemini India CEO Aruna Jayanthi talks about that and more in an interview to TOI.
With more emphasis on offshore delivery, how are you growing your India headcount?
We have 42,000 people today (out of the global strength of 1.2 lakh) and we want to increase it to 70,000 by 2015. We recently hired Natarajan Radhakrishnan (who was instrumental in setting up the Cognizant consulting practice) to spearhead our consulting practice from an offshore global delivery perspective. I spend a lot of time on HR related activities, identifying the skill gaps in the ecosystem. I believe there is enough technical talent . For hiring technical talent, engineering colleges are not the only places to go to any more. There is enough talent with strong reasoning, math and analytical skills if you expand the category. The challenge is in getting people who have a strong understanding of business and how technology facilitates business.
The European economy is in something of a rut. Yet you are betting big on it. Why?
Because Europe is coming of age compared to what it was in the last 2-3 years. We are focusing on France, Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries by leveraging on our existing relationships. We have set up what is called the topline initiatives , which are growth-focused teams that would work in areas like big data, analytics, mobility and independent software testing. Earlier, the bulk of system testing was done by internal IT teams. Now, testing is so critical that clients want to outsource testing to specialized players. Every time you make a small change, you have to test the entire portfolio independently .
What are the key growth drivers today?
To me, the biggest driver is focusing on how to improve customer experience . It's all about how customers' business is changing in the light of social media, mobility and analytics. Customer experience is driving a new wave of investment in marketing , customer management and supply chain. We see big opportunities in retail, utilities, tax, financial services and smart metering.
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