Accenture to hire 4,200 in Chennai

Global management consulting, IT services and outsourcing firm Accenture on Monday said India would be one of the key markets in terms of hiring by the company, with its Chennai operations alone expected to grow from the present 800 employees to 5,000 in the coming years.

The company, which employs over 15,000 people in India, is anticipating a growth of 55 per cent per annum in terms of the number of people employed, Karl-Heinz Floether, its group chief executive (technology & delivery), told reporters, after the formal inauguration of its Chennai facility, which became operational in January 2005.

India, which constituted over 13 per cent of Accenture's global headcount of 115,000, is its second largest geography in terms of the number of people employed after the United States.

Floether said 5,000 people worked at the BPO wing, while the remaining employees were part of the management consulting and IT services divisions.

Stating that the company was bullish China and Taiwan, India offered highly skilled and qualified people at lower costs.

"We expect this (the attractiveness of India) to continue in the Floether said, but added that the attrition rate of 20 per cent in the country was also on the higher side, compared to the global average of 18 per cent.

Accenture, which also has facilities in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, has a capacity of 2,500 seats in Chennai.

"The Chennai unit will employ 5,000 people over a period of time," said Chet Kamat, head (India delivery centre centure.

In Chennai, the company is looking at hiring technology graduates and IT professionals with skills in open systems (.NET and Java), host centric systems (mainframes), enterprise solutions (SAP, Siebel, Oracle), testing, business intelligence & data warehousing.

Accenture was also recruiting professionals for its fast growing BPO operations, with an initial focus on those with finance and accounting skills, officials said.

$14 billion Accenture has more than 40 delivery centres in five continents on a global basis.