Mphasis, an Indian outsourcing firm, will be investing US$ 2.5 million in its first stage of operations in Sri Lanka, to set up an office which is bigger than HSBC Data Processing Centre (HDPL), which is the largest business process outsourcing (BPO) entity here, Board of Investment (BOI) officials said.
“This will be the largest we will have and it will be bigger than HDPL,” a BOI official told Business Times on the sidelines of a press conference to announce Mphasis’ intention of setting up operations here.
The company is slated to open a centre in Colombo which will offer legal, finance and accounting services, according to Gopinathan Padmanathan, President Applications, Mphasis. He also said that Mphasis is currently doing the due diligence to set up the BPO operation. “The centre will be operational from next year. The office will recruit 600 employees in the first year with an intention to expand to 2,000 in three years,” Mr. Padmanathan said.
He noted that the BPO industry is now seeing signs of revivals and that the worst period is over. “I don’t see a slowdown now, I see a cautious approach.” Mphasis is the fifth largest BPO operator in India with revenues of 900 million dollars with a market capitalization of US$ 3.2 billion in 2008. Dinesh Venugopal, CEO, Mphasis said the company has 34,000 staff and has a presence in US, Europe, China, Japan, Australia and Singapore.
He also said that 64% of Mphasis’ revenues are generated from the North American market. He said that the company has already approached local academic institutions, chief among them the University of Moratuwa, to develop its talent pool.
The consulting giant, A.T. Kerney’s Global Services Location Index (GSLI) index identifies the top 50 countries for outsourcing globally, according to the Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies.
Source: http://www.sundaytimes.lk/091213/BusinessTimes/bt23.html
