The US-based Sutherland Global Services, claimed to be the world’s largest privately-held business process outsourcing (BPO) service provider with a significant presence in India, has decided to make India as the global hub for its activities. Towards this, the company has proposed to set up a 10,000-seater campus near Chennai, said Dilip Vellodi, chairman and CEO, Sutherland Global Services.
Speaking to FE, Vellodi said, “We want to make India the hub for our activities. Of the total size of 22,000 employees, we have close to 12,000 people working in India spread across three cities – Chennai, Kochi, and Mumbai. We want to ramp up our capacity in a big way and towards this we plan to set up a 10,000-seater campus near Chennai.”
“We have acquired sizeable land on the Old Mahabalipuram Road (now Rajiv Gandhi Road) near Chennai. It is a SEZ project and we will be investing Rs 200 crore in the first phase. We hope to complete the project in the next two to three years,” he said. The company is also planning to set up smaller campuses at Kochi and Mumbai, he added.
“India will continue to be an integral part of Sutherland’s global expansion. Chennai has been the offshore hub for Sutherland and our first point of entry into India and will now be the location for our first global campus,” he said further.
He said, “We don’t see any problem in recruiting skilled manpower in India. We continue to get a large number of skilled manpower in India. The attrition level at Indian BPOs have come down remarkably and the market condition looks good.” “In fact, we will be adding 4,000 people in the current year (2008), including 1,500 people in Kerala, to take the total size in India to over 15,000,” he added.
According to him, “Sutherland has been growing over 40% annually and the company has enough funds to grow organically for several quarters and we will continue to grow on the same line globally.” The company expects to end the year (2008) with a sales figure of $375 million, he added.
Meanwhile, the company has announced the launching of its fourth facility in the Philippines on Wednesday. The facility was unveiled by the President of the Phillippines Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The new facility in Camarines Sur will have 400 employees providing a full range of back office and customer lifecycle management services to Sutherland’s Fortune 500 client base. In 2007, Sutherland more than doubled its headcount in the Philippines. The company hired over 3,000 professionals in the Philippines, which will be increased to over 5,600 in the near future, he said further.
