Xansa to raise headcount in India to 5,000 by next year

Xansa, the IT outsourcing group, is to raise its headcount in India by more than one-third to 5,000 employees by the middle of 2007, maintaining its presence as one of the leading foreign employers in the country.

David Leigh, the group's commercial and strategy director who announced the plans after speaking at a software conference in Mumbai yesterday, said the cost efficiency of employing a large proportion of its workforce in India had made a significant impression on the company's ability to price its services competitively. As a result, he said, the company was keen to continue investing in the region.

"We aim to increase our headcount in India to approximately 5,000 by the middle of next year in order to reflect increasing demand for value which our Indian delivery model can bring to the UK public and private sector," he said.

Xansa was one of the first UK companies to employ large parts of its workforce in India, and has some 3,600 employees across three sites in Noida, Pune and Chennai.

It maintains that unlike many British companies, which have cut jobs in the UK to recruit in India, it has grown in both markets. With the front end of the business based in Reading, it claims it will need to recruit in the UK as well, as its business grows.

A significant part of Xansa's latest expansion will take place in Pune, where it is building a centre to accommodate 600 more staff.

The company runs some of its UK public-sector work, as well as the majority of its private-sector contracts, out of its Indian bases.

In spite of many multinational companies focusing on expanding their workforce through markets such as China and Eastern Europe, Mr Leigh said he believed India still offered good value.