Infosys BPO arm plans to set up Latin American delivery centre

MUMBAI: Bangalore-based IT major Infosys Technologies subsidiary Infosys BPO is planning on setting up a delivery centre in Latin America. The centre is expected to become operational in six months and will be part of its BPO global delivery network. After China and Eastern Europe, this will be its third delivery centre outside India.

Infosys BPO CEO & MD Amitabh Chaudhury confirmed the move and said Infosys BPO was in the process of selecting a Latin-American nation to set up operations. However, the parent company Infosys Technologies is not planning to set up a software development centre in Latin America currently, according to an official spokesperson.

In China, both Infosys Tech and its BPO arm have a development centre out of Hangzhou, near Shangai. Infosys BPO has a small presence in China and is planning to expand by about five to six times that number in a year.

Its existing centre in Czech Republic will also grow from 175 employees to about 300 employees. The Latin America centre will give Infosys BPO Spanish language capabilities, as well as the ability to run processes in the same time zone as the US.

"It is also important from a business continuity perspective," Mr Chaudhary said. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which leads Infosys in software exports, already has around 1,300 people working at its BPO center in Latin America. TCS established its Latin America presence through the acquisition of Chile-based Comicrom in November 2005.

Latin America is attractive because it enables BPO companies to service the Spanish speaking population in US at a lower cost. The US has a substantial Spanish-speaking population of immigrants from Latin America and Mexico.

Infosys is evaluating countries like Chile, Mexico and Uruguay. Speaking about the capacity of the Latin-America centre, Mr Chaudhary said, "I cannot put a figure to how many people we will have. But it will not be sub-optimal.

In 12 months, it could go up to 200-300 people." Clients doing a sizable amount work out of India may also prefer to get some of the work done from Latin America, he added. Bandwidth costs in Latin America are lower than in India because it is close to the US, he said.

n.shivapriya@timesgroup.com