2010-09-15 13:37

Boosting staff strength to ride the outsourcing boom

TIANJIN - India's third largest outsourcing firm Wipro Ltd said on Tuesday that it plans to nearly double its workforce in China by next year to capitalize on the booming outsourcing market.

Martha Bejar, Wipro's president of global sales and operations, told China Daily that the company plans to boost the number of employees in China from the current 600 to 1,000 by the end of next year.

"We still have a tiny business in China," said Bejar in an interview on the sidelines of the Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin.

"But if things continue to improve, we will probably have 1,000 people by next year."

Wipro currently has two service centers in China, one in Shanghai and the other in Chengdu. The company said it does not have plans to expand to other Chinese cities "right now".

Europe accounted for 25.4 percent of the company's revenue in the second quarter, down from 26.3 percent in the previous quarter, while the US brought in more than half of its revenue in the same period.

Emerging markets in Latin America, Asia and Africa are still a relatively small part of Wipro's business, accounting for 7 percent or less of revenue.

Bejar said China has a unique advantage in its huge talent pool to develop the outsourcing industry. But in terms of market size and the level of globalization, China is still lagging behind India.

Revenues in China's software industry rose by 29 percent year-on-year to reach 723.1 billion yuan ($106 billion) in the first seven months of 2010, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Outsourcing services provided by the country's software industry rose by 32.9 percent to $1.49 billion.

Earlier this year, the Chinese government launched a new regulation to help domestic outsourcing companies tackle the current financial crisis.

Bejar noted that manufacturing, telecom, media entertainment, technology and finance sectors are the most promising opportunities in China for Wipro over the next few years.