Xansa, an IT outsourcing and business process
outsourcing company, is to increase its staff in India by 400 by
April, taking the total number of staff in the country to about
2,000.
"In India we are continuing to grow rapidly and have increased
our headcount by over 50% since the start of our financial year in
May," said Alistair Cox, chief executive of the company.
Xansa's facilities at Noida and Chennai are already functioning
and the next phase of construction of a facility at Pune is under
way.
Once built, Xansa's total capacity in India will provide 10,000
seats on a single-shift basis. The company has been operating in
India since 1989, using the country as a key offshore location for
services delivery.
Xansa delivers IT outsourcing and BPO services to its clients in
the UK and US using operations in the UK and India. The company
employs about 6,000 people between India and the UK.
"We have continued to increase the scope of services offered as
well as the number of clients served," said Cox.
"Our focus in India is twofold. Firstly, the delivery of
integrated IT services to our clients combining skills from
offshore with those already in place onshore. Secondly, the
provision of high-value, complex back-office processes with the
potential to move into front-office processes as our clients
require."
Anticipating growth in both its IT and BPO services
business, the company is recruiting heavily to meet anticipated
demand.
"Growth in the BPO area has been particularly significant and we
now operate ten discrete processes offshore for a number of
different clients up from a year ago," Cox said.
India's IT services and BPO industry got a strong endorsement
from UK representatives at the National Association of Software and
Service Companies (Nasscom) conference this week.
Addressing the conference, the UK's minister of state for energy
and e-commerce, Stephen Timms assured Indian industry that the UK
will not use anti-outsourcing bills and other protectionist
measures that would affect outsourcing of work to India.
Outsourcing of work to India and other low-cost locations has
received criticism from workers in both the UK and the US.
The US Senate passed in January an omnibus Appropriations Bill
totalling $328bn, which contains provisions that restrict
government contractors from outsourcing work overseas.
Both the US federal legislature and some state legislatures are
considering bills that would curb outsourcing of government
contracts to locations outside the US.
John Riberio writes for IDG News Service