The centre of gravity of the technology world is moving to India. This is arguably the biggest certificate ever issued on India's technology strength, given that it comes from Don Rippert, Chief Technology Officer of the $17 billion Accenture.
Speaking to experts' gathering at the opening of Accenture's technology lab in Bangalore, he said, "There is no future for Accenture without a major presence in India. I would not say the same thing, if I am standing in Germany."
From both supply and demand scenario, Accenture has built the India gameplay into a key strategy. India is at the top of the mind recall with the management of Accenture," Rippert noted.
The corporation currently employs 23,000 professionals in India across seven cities and 10 facilities accounting for 18 per cent of its total workforce and is the second largest concentration after the United States.
"This gap between India and the US is closing rapidly and by the time I retire, it will not be a surprise if India will house the largest number of employees in Accenture," added Rippert, who has spent 26 years with Accenture.
To Accenture, India is both a threat and opportunity. "It is fast becoming a destination of choice for global corporations as well as Indian companies to grow in size. This platform will build an effective competition for us and on the other hand the booming economy here offers us an opportunity to partner with Indian corporations as they build their competitiveness to become global organisations," he noted.
Rippert said the Accenture technology lab in Bangalore will focus on R&D in systems integration and software engineering. The goal will be to enable businesses to reduce cost and improve the quality of technology solution delivery. India was chosen as the fourth location for Accenture Technology Labs to have an innovation team co-located with one of its largest client delivery teams.
Accenture India serves more than 275 of the firm's clients globally. The India R&D lab will work along with labs at Palo Alto (California) and Chicago (Illinois) in the US and Sophia Antipolis in France.
R&D professionals from India's leading universities and research and software engineering institutes will staff the Bangalore facility. Company officials estimated the core team will grow to over 100 researchers and developers.