Last updated on October 30th, 2023 at 04:32 pm
Business process outsourcing giant Genpact has pledged to invest in hiring local talent and expanding its Australian operations as it seeks to double its size in the country and become a $200 million business within four years.
Genpact, which started as a business unit in General Electric in 1997 before being spun out in 2005, has been a quiet presence in Australia, despite building up an impressive client list including two of the big four banks, Suncorp and Brambles. It has hired its first Australian general manager, bringing former Capgemini Asia Pacific and Middle East managing director Colin Flynn in to bulk up the local operation, with a view to hiring more local staff.
The company has previously functioned more on a supply of workers and permanent residents brought in from India.
Genpact’s global president, NV Tyagarajan, known as Tiger, told The Australian Financial Review that the company had brought in consulting firm McKinsey & Company to assess its business and markets last year.
The firm assessed Australia as one of the top five markets, globally, to reap more profit.
He said the company’s traditional strength in the financial services sector meant it was well-placed in a growing market.
Referring to the US market, Mr Tyagarajan said Genpact had about 4000 staff in operations centres doing mortgage processing, healthcare, consumer products and financial regulatory work.
He saw the Australian operation moving in the same direction.
Mr Flynn acknowledged he had taken on a large task in signing on to double local business.
He said it would involve branching out into other sectors, including consumer packaged goods and infrastructure services.
“We have grown to be a $100 million business in Australia today with a small group of very strategic, deep relationships, primarily in financial services. The aim is to take that $100 million and make it $200 million over the next three to four years, but the nature of that $200 million business will be different to the $100 million one of today,” Mr Flynn said.
“We will then have .?.?. onshore delivery mixed with our offshore delivery and we will have a significantly bigger presence across business re-engineering, analytics and technology.”
The director of vendor agnostic outsourcing advisory firm Mindfields, Mohit Sharma, said the appointment of Mr Flynn was a step in the right direction for the company in Australia, as his prior consulting experience would help as Genpact aimed to integrate more IT services into its offerings.
“Their next step should be to grow inorganically in Australia by acquiring intellectual property to offer platform and transactional pricing,” Mr Sharma said. “They also need to diversify their client base in Australia. Currently, they have more than 95 per cent of revenue in Australia from banking and finance clients.”
Mr Flynn said hiring plans were under way, and would include a push to hire business school graduates, and seek potential acquisitions to grow into new market segments.
“Our onshore story is a good one in terms of looking to recruit and build skills, because it is not going to be about just bringing Indian resources to Australia,” he said. “The $100 million business in Australia is me and a group of people offshore; the $200 million business in the future will have a very different onshore geographic mix of employees.”
© Financial Review
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