Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS), the BPO arm of the diversified Hinduja Group, plans to hire about 3,000-4,000 people in the current fiscal.
The company, which sees the global economic slowdown opening up more opportunities for the sector, also plans to open new centres in Canada and London.
“Hiring has been good. We added about 4,000 people last year. I would say the trend may be the same this year too about 3,000-4,000,” company’s Chief Executive Officer Partha De Sarkar said.
He added that the slowdown has not impacted the BPO sector and Hinduja Global Services has seen a good growth in clients. “About 10-12 clients were added in the last six months.”
“The clients are trying to move costs out from their books and definitely want to take long-term liabilities out. So, the opportunities actually improve when you have clients under cost pressures,” Partha De Sarkar said.
The company, which recently has set up a centre in Jamaica, will also be opening new centres in Canada and a centre two hours from London.
HGS also inaugurated a center in Bangalore and has taken up another SEZ in Bangalore, he said.
“Jamaica centre initially will have a capacity of 100-150 people. Eventually it will have a capacity of 500 people. Centres at London and Canada will capacity of about 300 each while the Bangalore centre’s is 700,” he added.
“The SEZ, which will probably open up by the end of the year, will provide employment to about 500 persons,” Partha De Sarkar said.
HGS is also on a “constant lookout” for acquisitions.
“We look at our product portfolio and services portfolio and some of our acquisitions would be towards filling up holes is our portfolio,” he said.
“There isn’t any size when we are looking at a new market or an acquisition. This (for filling service gaps) could be anywhere between $10-25 million,” he added.
Stating that India still retains its cost effective advantage, Partha De Sarkar said the industry is not seeing stagnation in growth. “What we are seeing is a fair amount of consolidation happening and that is bound to happen as there are too many players in the market place. So, what we’ll be left with are a few big players.”