‘India’s workforce quality is superior’

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Save & Share Article

What’s this?

Digg	My Yahoo	Fark
del.icio.us	Newsvine	Reddit

Rate This Article

Rating:  9

Friday , January 18, 2008 at 2231 hrs Dieter Scheiff, CEO, Adecco Group holds that the Indian staffing market would acquire greater importance in times to come. This will occur with the country’s young demographic profile and its superior quality workforce. Not surprisingly, the company is looking at strengthening its position in India. Recently, it upped its stake in the Bangalore-based Indian staffing firm PeopleOne to 100%— it had bought a 67% stake in the organisation in 2004. Globally, Adecco enjoys a dominant position in the world staffing market and is the biggest human resource recruitment firm. It has 7,000 offices in 60 countries. Meanwhile, in the financial year (calendar) 2006, the group had sales of Euro 20.4 billion. The group places over 7 lakh people everyday with its network of over 1.5 lakh clients. In an interview, via email with Taneesha Kulshrestha, he says that going forward, Adecco may also still have further acquisitions in India. He is optimistic about positive changes that may come about with the new Chinese labour law coming into effect from January 1, 2008. Excerpts:

As a staffing market, how important is India for you?

With a GDP growth of 8-10% year-on-year, India is one of the world’s fastest growing market and is, therefore, key for the Adecco Group.

How much does Adecco’s India operations contribute to your global revenue and what are your expectations for the same going forward?

Currently, 40,000 people are working in Adecco India. The contribution of the Indian operations to the total Adecco Group revenue of Euro 20.4 billion and profit of Euro 611 million (2006) is still marginal due to the lower salary levels compared to the levels of Europe or the US. However, in terms of potential growth, India and China are key to the Adecco Group.

Are you looking at any more acquisitions in India? What is the rationale for upping your stake to 100% in PeopleOne. Can you share your growth targets with us?

We are currently screening the market in the US, Europe and Asia for professional acquisitions. However, we are also looking at some specific emerging markets such as India and China for good specialised general staffing businesses. We agreed that when we acquired 64% of PeopleOne (2004) to increase our stake to 100%. This is where we have now reached and are happy about it.