Chennai to become key hub for Thomson

Thomson Corporation, an information services company, expects Chennai along with Hyderabad to be a key hub for scientific information solutions business.

The $6.6-billion Thomson, which recently bought Reuters for about $17.2 billion, has opened the Thomson Scientific Centre in Chennai, the company's third location after Bangalore and Hyderabad in India.

Addressing a press conference, Stephen Quinn, senior vice president -- editorial operations, Thomson Scientific, part of Thomson Corporation, said the Chennai centre would provide high value content by leveraging high quality manpower.

Thomson scientific information solutions focus on assisting professionals at every stage of research and development -- from discovery and analysis to product development and distribution.

In addition to focussing on providing information from over 10,000 journals across the world and value-adds, the Chennai centre will focus on improving the company's product offerings, re-engineering and re-aligning the products and services. The expansion will result in Thomson Scientific's content growing by 20 per cent annually.

The company studied 19 cities to establish its operations before zeroing in on Chennai, with the city having an edge over the others in the availability of science professionals and researchers, he pointed out.

The Chennai editorial operation centre will initially employ about 250 people, comprising a mix of experienced professionals, PhDs, scientific researchers, graduates and post-graduates.

Thomson, which commenced operations in Bangalore in 1994, presently employs 2,200 people at its Bangalore centre and 150 at the Hyderabad centre. The company expects to ramp up the headcount in Hyderabad to 1,000 by 2009.

The company also plans to set up a training facility in Chennai over the next six months. "We will recruit high quality scientific professionals and also invest in further development. We will also look into the possibility of collaborating with leading educational institutions and universities in the surrounding areas," Quinn said.

Thomson Corporation operates in five segments -- Thomson Legal, Thomson Tax and Accounting, Thomson Financial, Thomson Scientific and Thomson Healthcare. Thomson Scientific segment contributed around half a billion to Thomson's total revenue of $6.6 billion in 2006.