Telecom equipment major Alcatel-Lucent is planning to set up its global services headquarters in India, clearly underlining the country's strength in the services sector and its human resource capabilities. The plan, which is likely to be cleared in the next few weeks, will entail an investment of $500 million over the next three years and also generate hundreds of jobs.
“We are considering India as a destination for moving our global services headquarters. It will be fourth pillar of our operations and global strategy,” Alcatel-Lucent Chief Executive Officer Ben Verwaayen told journalists here on Friday.
He is now in India on a ‘fact-finding mission' regarding the setting up of the global services headquarters here.
“India is one of the strategic markets of depth of talent, new capabilities and socio services to support 3G and 4G. Given all these factors, we have shortlisted India as the global services headquarters thereby making it a fourth pillar of strategy. The other global hubs are at the U.S., China and France. This will involve an investment of half-a-billion dollars and hiring substantial number of resources over the next three years,” he added.
Alcatel-Lucent, which has been operating in India for the last two decades and managing services contracts of leading Indian telecom companies, is also keen on focussing on hi-end research and design work at its lab in Bangalore and other centres. “Besides expanding our R&D capabilities here, we want to focus on basic manufacturing in India. India is not only an important market for us, it is also a major resource base for our operations globally,” Mr. Verwaayen pointed out.
Mr. Verwaayen said the company expected to grow more in the data segment in India. “We will grow in the IP (Internet Protocol) segment, where we have strength. The growth driver for us is the changes happening in the market, which are more related to data and the drive for services ,'' he said.
