Accenture India close to half of global count

A key milestone in India’s IT revolution is set to be crossed in months if not weeks, as the country’s share in the global headcount of multinational Accenture’s outsourced services network is set to cross the 50 per cent mark – which means half of the world-wide work-force in the key unit will be based in New Delhi.

The Indian headcount of IBM Global Services is also fast heading for the half-way mark. Sapient, a relatively smaller company focused on IT consulting, crossed the half-way mark years ago. All these companies signify services globalisation, in which India is becoming akin to what China is in manufacturing.

As Accenture inaugurated a new delivery centre in Noida on Tuesday, its sixth in India since a modest start of the delivery centre work in 2003, the total headcount of the Global Delivery Network (GDN) – which is the part of Accenture that competes for outsourced work with companies like Infosys and Wipro – was about 77,000 across 53 countries. Company officials put the Indian part of it at well over 35,000 in six cities.

“We are just a couple of thousands away (from the half-way mark),” Pankaj Vaish, who heads the worldwide delivery centre network for Accenture, told Hindustan Times.

Accenture chairman Bill Green had said last April that the total headcount in India will cross 50,000 in about a year’s time.

Worldwide, Accenture has about 180,000 employees in 49 countries, but the bulk of the staff are consultants and computer systems integrators who work on client sites. The GDN has call centres and business process outsourcing (BPO) workers and in effect works like a company within the company.

(The Hindustan times dt 9 7 2008)