9 new technology centres in India

[dwarakesh]

Past few months have seen IT industry go through a rough patch. An industry which was used to heady 20 per cent plus growth had to suddenly deal with salary cuts, hiring freeze and pink slips due to turmoil in its biggest market and the industry vertical.

But all dark clouds have a silver lining. And so do these. In the midst of these trying times, one can seek hope in the aggressive expansion plans that many IT companies are busy chalking out. In fact, recent months have seen a number of IT and telecom companies announce setting up of new centres. And with them will come new jobs.

These announcements also indicate that the worst may well be behind the IT companies, and a revival is slowly and steadily setting in. Here's a look at the companies that have announced new centres in India in the past few months.

[dwarakesh]

TCS, Lucknow

Country's largest software services exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), last month opened a new development centre in Lucknow to develop solutions for global corporations and support the e-governance initiatives of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Spanning over 3 acres of land, the centre is company's second largest IT establishment in UP after the TCS facility in Noida. The centre which has a capacity of 1,500 seats is the latest addition to the company's Global Network Delivery Model (GNDMTM).

TCS CEO and MD, S Ramadorai said, "Lucknow is an integral part of the TCS' strategy to invest in Tier-II cities and spread the IT revolution in the country. Lucknow has the potential to be a leader among the emerging IT destinations in India and it is this belief that has driven our strategy to invest in this area."

The Lucknow centre will enable TCS to develop and implement software solutions for global corporations countries like the US, Canada, the UK, Singapore and South Africa.

[dwarakesh]

Nokia Siemens, Noida

In late March, Nokia Siemens Networks opened a new Global Network Solutions Centre (GNSC) in Noida near Delhi. The latest GNSC is part of the company's strategy to make India the global hub for its services platform. Nokia had earlier set up a similar centre in Chennai.

The new centre complements the company's two existing GNSCs in Lisbon (Portugal) and Chennai. GNSCs are designed to help customers get to market faster through 'round-the-clock' project management, ensure high network and service performance through transparent Service Level Agreements and improve service delivery efficiency while reducing risk.

[dwarakesh]

GlobalLogic, Bangalore

Leader in global product development services, GlobalLogic Inc expanded its newest centre in Bangalore. LumenData, a company specialising in data management, has partnered with GlobalLogic for product development and implementation.

The company said, "GlobalLogic seeks only highly skilled engineers with several years of experience to join its global team. The centre in Bangalore is critical to recruitment efforts in India. It's an important technology hub that gives us access to a pool of highly talented engineers."

GlobalLogic has engineering centres in Eastern Europe, Israel, China and the United States.

[dwarakesh]

Perot Systems, Chennai

Perot Systems recently announced a new 23,617 square foot facility in Chennai for the expansion of its services in India to serve the company's continuing IT services growth in world markets.

The company currently operates facilities in Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore and Noida. The new centre will accommodate approximately 353 seats across three shifts at its opening, bringing the company's total India-based employees to more than 7,000.

The services provided from the new facility will include processing highly complex and knowledge intensive, high-volume, high-value transactions for healthcare provider, healthcare payer, life insurance and F&A clients around the world.

[dwarakesh]

Cognizant, Kolkata

IT biggie Cognizant announced that it will kick off operations at its second IT services unit in Kolkata before September.

Cognizant is setting up its second IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) services unit in Kolkata with an investment of close to Rs 188 crore. This is expected to sharply raise Cognizant's footprint in Kolkata with the addition of over 5 lakh sq ft of office space that may accommodate nearly 4,000 new employees.

The new fully-owned techno-complex will come up on 20 acres in the Bantala IT SEZ. At present, out of its 44,000 global workforce, around 33,000 are at the India development centres spread across eight cities, including Chennai and Bangalore. In addition to this facility, Cognizant will continue to lease additional facilities in Kolkata to meet its headcount growth requirements, according to the company.

[dwarakesh]

British Telecom, Noida

British Telecom (BT) India, the local operation of BT, one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services, opened it's first-ever BT Asia Pacific Security Operations centre (SOC) in Noida, India recently.

The new SOC would initially employ over 30 highly skilled specialists, with a focus on both Asia Pacific and global customers. The SOC will provide security device management services involving critical customer components including firewalls, intrusion detection devices and Bluecoat Proxy devices used for securing networked-IT environments.

The new BT SOC centre will manage customers' security environments, 24 hours a day, every day of the year for a number of customers within finance, retail, and manufacturing sectors delivering incident, change, configuration and problem management services working alongside BT's European and Americas Security Operations Centres. This will create a BT global "Follow-the-Sun" SOC customer service platform.

The centre is located in a BT-dedicated building at Noida. It has space for over 100 engineers in the first phase, comprising a segregated area with secure access control via tight security (barrier, xray machine) and then 2-factor authentication for room access.

[dwarakesh]

Honeywell International, Bangalore

Technology and manufacturing firm Honeywell International recently unveiled its research, development and engineering facility with an investment of $50 million in Bangalore. Spread over an area of 600,000 sq ft, the centre is the second R&D facility in Bangalore and will accommodate 3,000 people.

Company Chairman and CEO David Cote said, "Honeywell which just about 500 employees six to seven years back with $50 million sales today has close to 11,000 (staff) contributing $600 million in sales."

He added that the company is looking forward to growth in India in the segments of aerospace, automation and control solutions, wireless, turbo chargers and speciality materials which inlcudes refining business.

[dwarakesh]

Nortel, Bangalore

Communication services provider Nortel opened a Global Network Operations Center (GNOC) in Bangalore to help manage and support communications networks for enterprise and carrier customers across Asia, Europe and America. This is Nortel's fifth network operations centre globally. Nortel's other NOCs are located in North America, Europe, China and Gurgaon.

The Bangalore GNOC would provide round-the-clock network surveillance and performance monitoring for voice and data networks, the company said.

Nortel Asia-Pacific Vice President (Managed Service Delivery) Suresh Kumar said that the GNOC pro actively monitors customer networks to identify network problems before they can impact business functions or productivity, and seeks to resolve issues either remotely from the GNOC or by dispatching technicians to the customer's site. The company's GNOC in Bangalore is already servicing more than 50 customers across the world including many Fortune 500 companies.

[dwarakesh]

Sparsh BPO, Bangalore

Sparsh BPO Services, the domestic BPO subsidiary of Intelenet Global Services, has opened its second delivery centre in Bangalore. The 450 seater located at Hebbal further expands Sparsh's presence in the city and provides proximity to key customers in the Southern region.

The centre will provide multilingual services in English, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu across a range of verticals to deliver contact center management including customer support services, collections and sales. This is the company's fourth centre in the South and nineteenth in India.

Susir Kumar, CEO and MD, Intelenet, said, "Bangalore offers a strong combination of language skills, talent and a competitive advantage for clients operating in the Southern region."

Sparsh currently has over 40 client relationships with leading multinational companies across telecom, banking, insurance, consumer durables, retail, media, aviation & public sectors. Sparsh provide services in 15 languages with centres in Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Mohali, Kolkata, Gurgaon, Delhi and Puducherry.

Source: indiatimes