Capgemini in process of restructuring its operations

India is further cementing its position as an outsourcing hub for global software majors. The Paris-based software major Capgemini is in the process of restructuring its India operations in an attempt to scale up operations.

The company, which plans to ramp up the headcount to 30,000 people by 2010 from the existing 13,000 people, has recently appointed Salil Parekh as the Executive Chairman of India operations. Parkesh was the CEO of Capgemini’s North American operations. The company has elevated Aruna Jayanthi, who was the vice president of Capgemini India, to global delivery officer for outsourcing services. Jayanthi will be mainly responsible for establishing local consulting business.

In the new role, Parekh will be reporting to Capgemini CEO Paul Hermelin and will focus on integrating Kanbay which was recently acquired by Capgemini for $1.2 billion. Industry experts say that Parekh is a restructuring specialist who has been with Capgemini for seventeen years.

Parkeh was also involved in many restructuring exercises involving integration of companies post acquisiton in North America. "We would like to acquire a 3000-seater BPO company and another one in the product engineering segment and are evaluating companies in both the areas," said Parekh. While Parekh refuses to reveal the size of his target acquisitions, analysts opine that it could be in the region of $100– 800 million range.

Asia Pacific under which India falls, reported a mere 1 per cent revenues to the companies total 6.5 billion Euros (Rs 40282 crores) and the restructuring exercise is aimed at increasing India’s contribution to the global bottomline.

Competitors such as EDS, Accenture and IBM are increasing their India presence significantly. Recent ramp up in headcount by Indian majors like TCS and Infosys is proving to be stiff competition for the company.

"Even though it is one of the big four in software, Capgemini has not been as aggressive as some of its competitors like Accenture, IBM or recently even EDS," said an analyst from a leading Mumbai-based brokerage house.

"With these initiatives, the company would like to be seen as a player with a foucssed India approach and with the likes of Infosys and TCS playing at the same level, it needs a differentiator," says Capgemini presently has operation in three cities- Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata where its engineers work on software development, outsourcing, application management and BPO services to its global clients out of India.