China key to Indian IT growth

China will be a key part of Indian outsourcing giant Satyam's plans to create 15,000 new jobs worldwide and grow revenue to $2.69bn this year.

China will take centre stage for this growth, with Satyam planning to boost its 1,000-strong employee base there to 10,000 and to increase the number of development centres in the country from the five it currently owns.

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Satyam currently runs 95 per cent of its low-cost operations from India, employing 51,000 people, with 46 per cent revenue growth to $2.1bn over the last financial year.

New development centres are planned in Eastern Europe, Germany, Mauritius, the Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Vietnam, and a further three in South America.

This will help Satyam achieve its ambition of increasing its international offshoring presence and reduce the proportion of its low-cost operations in India to about 80 per cent.

Founder and chairman of Satyam, Ramalinga Raju, said the company is not tied to India.

He said: "We do not regard ourselves as an Indian company, we see ourselves as a global company. Offshoring is about working where there is access to high quality skills and services at a lower cost."

Amid the current economic uncertainty, the company is reducing its reliance on US customers, which has gone down to 60 per cent, and is aiming to grow its European base to 30 per cent from its current level of 21 per cent.

Raju said: "We would expect Europe to form a greater proportion of our revenues and to take up more of our focus."

The company is also reducing its reliance on the biggest names among its 600 customers, with revenues from its top 10 clients falling to 31 per cent in the final quarter of last year, down from 36 per cent the previous year, while the number of customers worth $1m to $10m annually increased by 17 during the same period.

AS Murthy, head of human resources for Satyam, highlighted the shortage of skills among the 300,000 Indian students who graduate in engineering each year, saying only 25 per cent of these are employable.

He said Satyam is working with Indian campuses and teaching facilities to ensure lower skilled workers are being taught the right skills.

Satyam trains its employees through its School of Leadership and Real Time Learning Centre, to help monitor and improve employee performance.

The company claims this training and employee empowerment has helped reduce its staff attrition rates from 18 per cent to 13 per cent over the last year, making it the only Indian tech company to see attrition fall during this period.

Indian wages continue to shoot up each year, however, rising 16 per cent last year and are expected to go up by 12 to 14 per cent this year - in line with the industry average in India.