The Indian arm of US-based Symphony Services Corp, an outsourcing and software development firm, said on Wednesday that it will double its staff by year's end due to robust orders from global firms.
Symphony Services India, the privately-held Indian company funded by parent Symphony Services Corp. and TH Lee Putnam Ventures, said it would hire 1,000 professionals before 2005 to take the headcount to 2,000.
The Bangalore centre employs outsourcing, software design and development and analytics solution engineers, who are meant to analyse data collected from consumers.
"Our plan now is to move into segments such as banking and insurance in the analytics group," said Ajay Kela, president of Symphony Services India. "This segment is showing a strong growth. Of the total, 500 engineers will be recruited here."
The company also released a report on the outsourcing industry which said captive call centres, started by foreign and local firms on their own in India, were being hit by high salaries.
"The salaries paid by these captive centres are on an average 40 percent higher than the offshore ones," said Gordon Brooks, President and Chief Executive Officer, Symphony Services.
"These centres do not reach cost and productivity parity with offshore firms until they reach a manpower strength of at least 1,000," Brooks said.
Presently, more than 100 captive call centres including Dell and EDS, have set up operations in the technology hub of India, Bangalore. Some of them have started operations with just 20 graduates.
Brooks said since offshore was not their core business and because of lack of scale, captive centres operate at productivity levels of about 80 percent.
The study was based on interviews with more than 200 professionals in the outsourcing industry and with the company's clients. It took more than two years to be completed.
"Ninety-five per cent of all software companies we interviewed said they will operate offshore by 2006," Brooks said without naming the firms.
-- AFP
