HCL Technologies to intensify efforts to expand infrastructure services in Brazil
Leading global IT services provider HCL Technologies has announced that it intends to assertively concentrate on spreading out the firm’s infrastructure services in Brazil. Sandeep Kalra, HCL vice-president (Emerging Geographies) made this announcement at the ‘Gartner Outsourcing Summit 2010’ in Sao Paulo in Brazil recently. It may be noted that HCL has just completed a year of business in the Brazil, where it has around 150 local professionals proficient in Spanish and Portuguese on its rolls.
A news website quotes Kalra as saying that the Brazilian firms have been facing new growth opportunities following the revival of the global economy and several of them would require making tactical investments in the information technology in order to enable them to launch new products and services in the market. Hence, HCL intends to develop its infrastructure presence in the area by establishing a multilingual service desk capacity with a view to take care of its local clients in Rio Grande do Sul as well as those located worldwide. The new facility is designed to offer international support for telecom as well as mainframe clients globally, Kalra added.
Meanwhile, another website quotes HCL Technologies (Infrastructure Services Division) executive vice-president R Srikrishna as saying that globally Brazil is the 8th largest IT and ITeS market of an approximate size of $15 billion. Citing a Gartner report, Srikrishna said that around 50 per cent of the IT and ITeS deals in Brazil are not renewed with the existing service providers owing to several reasons. Hence, he said that HCL expects to utilize this vast opportunity of winning contracts that have been forgone by other firms.
Describing HCL’s move to aggressively focus on the Brazilian IT and ITeS market as a natural move by the firm, which is already operating in the other seven major markets, Srikrishna said that their presence in Brazil is consistent with the company’s strategy to make way into the Latin American market and Brazil would be the base for them in the area.
In fact, Brazil is the biggest domestic market in the Latin American region and makes up more than half of the IT expenditure in the region. HCL’s decision to expand its operations in Brazil is based on the country’s fast economic growth, growing globalization of businesses in Brazil as well as the development of multinational conglomerates in the country’s domestic market. The Indian IT firm is of the view that vis-à-vis costs, India is comparatively inexpensive by 30 to 40 per cent, while services offered by the Brazilian firms are a great deal cheaper compared to the US or the UK. Nevertheless, having service centers in Brazil is offers several advantages since it also helps to offer advent grade services to the firm’s customers in Latin America.