MphasiS to expand Chennai operations

Chennai: MphasiS, an EDS company, will expand its Chennai operations with an investment of around $20 million (about Rs 80 crore) this year.

The company inaugurated its Enterprise Lab, an innovation lab, to support its clients and of its parent in development of products and applications, the US-based EDS.

The Chennai lab is the first in Asia Pacific for both MphasiS and EDS, according to Mr Tom Fabry, Director, Enterprise Labs, EDS, which has a 61 per cent stake in MphasiS, a Bangalore-based software company.

The lab will work with EDS’ global labs located in the US, the UK and Australia. EDS will now provide ‘follow-the-sun’ model wherein when one centre goes ’offline’ the other centre picks up responsibility for the next shift. All the labs will be integrated and offer similar capabilities, he told newspersons.

The EDS Enterprise Labs will enable virtual teams come together in a global delivery model to provide innovation around-the-close support for MphasiS and EDS operations and customers. The labs help clients’ development of new products and software applications right from concept stage to pilot, and taking it to the market. Clients can save a couple of week by using the labs’ services, he said.

Mr Jeya Kumar, CEO, MphasiS, said as part of its consolidation and expansion plans, the company will add 3,600 seats in the city by the year end. The new facility in the DLF SEZ IT park at Manapakkam, Chennai, will enable the company go to market faster with domain-based services that address customer needs. The company has around 2,200 employees in the city, he said.

MphasiS also plans to set up a business process outsourcing centre in Tiruchi or Coimbatore to house around 2,000 employees. The centre is likely to come up in three to four months.

Of the 27,000 employees it has totally, MphasiS has around 10,000 employees in its BPO operations. It also offers application services, remote infrastructure services and knowledge process outsourcing. It plans to add around 8,000 people during this fiscal across India, Mr Kumar said.

On the takeover of EDS by Hewlett Packard, Mr Kumar said, “there will not be any change for MphasiS’ operations and we will operate independently. I cannot comment more till the deal is through,” he said.