Global consulting and technology services major Accenture is planning to expand the company's business process outsourcing footprint in India by increasing its headcount to 50,000 employees in the next five years and opening more centres in various cities.

"We would be increasing our headcount from 37,000 to 50,000 in the next five years and set up more centres. Most of our business would be focused on the third party solutions and a little bit on the captive sector," Accenture BPO Lead Executive P G Raghuraman told PTI.

The company is also seeking to tap the BPO industry by securing new acquisitions in the domestic market. "In the last quarter, we made 10 acquisitions globally and there is lot of scope for replicating this in the country." He, however, refrained from mentioning the names of the firms Accenture BPO is eyeing presently.

"If we go for acquisitions, it would be for increasing our capability and delivery network and not for merely increasing our scale," Raghuraman added.

He said the company is planning to tap the emerging growth opportunities in the domestic business sector.

Accenture BPO presently has 37,000 employees in the country and 13 centres located in six cities. It plans to add another 13,000 odd employees as part of the firm's global delivery network expansion strategy.

"In the future, we are looking at all emerging sectors including telecom, retail, FMCG for providing support with our BPO network. In addition, we are also seeking to tap the opportunities in sales support, finance and accounting and supply chain management," Raghuraman said.

He added that the company has fixed targets for achieving turnovers in the next five years, but refused to divulge details. He also refrained from mentioning the cities where the company is seeking to set up new centres.

On being asked about the effect of attrition, he said Accenture BPO has a 25-30 per cent lower rate of attrition than the prevalent industry rate. "We have been able to successfully tide over the attrition wave because of greater engagement with employees and expansion of our supply chain," he said.

The company has also unveiled a work-from-home project for its support employees. "We have recently launched a pilot project in this area and are hoping to increase the number of such employees to 'multiple hundreds' within a few months," he added.