Dell Computer and consulting firm Capgemini have become the latest tech powerhouses to publicly acknowledge plans to significantly increase headcount in India in order to tap the country's highly skilled, but relatively lowly paid, IT and business services workforce.
Dell could double its current Indian workforce of 10,000 over the next three years, a company spokesman confirmed on Monday. The Times of India and other Indian newspapers reported that company chairman Michael Dell announced the plan during a weekend roundtable with business reporters in Bangalore. Dell Computer will add the new positions "if the Indian market grows the way we believe it will," the spokesman said.
Dell currently has 1.7 million square feet of office space in use in the Indian cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, and Mohali. The build-to-order computer maker also plans to open a new, 1,000-seat contact center in the northern city of Gurgaon by year's end.
Dell isn't just looking to offshore jobs from the United States to India. The company wants to increase headcount across Asia in order to support efforts to increase sales in the fast-growing region, the spokesman said. Dell's sales in India increased more than 21% in 2005, compared to the previous year.
The company is also hiring domestically. "We expect to continue adding to headcount in the U.S.," the spokesman said. Dell employs 26,000 workers in the United States, about 40% of its total workforce.
Also Monday, Paris-based consulting and IT services firm Capgemini said it has opened a new, 500-seat service center in the Indian city of Kolkata. The facility will act as a center for business-process outsourcing services, packaged software implementation, and custom application development.
