TCS to set up a third centre in China, hire 4,000 more

Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India''s top information technology company, will set up a third development centre in China by the end of current financial year to support its growing clientele there.

TCS will also raise the number of personnel employed at its China facilities by five-fold to around 5,000 by 2010, from the present 1,000, chief operating officer N. Chandrasekaran said on the sidelines of the Nasscom Quality Summit in Bangalore.

The company currently operates two development centres in Beijing and HangZhou and serves close to 20 global clients from China.

"China is a fantastic market and the company is seeing good momentum in that country," Chandrasekaran said, adding that TCS would continue to scale up its delivery centres in Mexico and in Eastern Europe. "We may look at opening a second centre in Hungary," he said.

TCS, he said, is aiming to improve its operational efficiencies to offset the impact of currency fluctuation and wage inflation on its margins. It is planning to increase its offshore revenues by around 400 basis points from 41 per cent to about 45 per cent over the next four to eight quarters by moving more work offshore, he said.

TCS, meanwhile, announced the induction of four new whole-time executive directors on its board. With this expansion, the TCS board will have 12 members, including 6 independent directors.