Chennai
Dr Sanjay Tyagi, Director, STPI, told DTNext “Chennai has niche expertise and is gaining prominence as a Saas or Software as a Service capital of the country. Right from the time since the roll-out of the first financial product from Polaris, the IT industry has not looked back. Talent, specialised in the financial space, has given the city edge as far as SaaS is concerned.” Also, the IT sector has invested time and resources to acquire global capabilities over time. This advantage cannot be shrugged off, which is why majors from world over, focused on such capabilities, tap into the talent reservoir of Chennai. Now, the effort should be to multiply it, he added.
These are the reasons for setting up the fintech Centre of Excellence in the city, Dr Tyagi said, noting that such CoEs gave opportunities to nurture startups and attracting investments in the state through local and international players.
M Balasubramaniam, MD, Blackboard, Chair – Nasscom GCC, TN & Kerala, said the C-suite executives of GCCs, have repeatedly given thumbs up to talent and the work culture prevalent here. In many of the meetings organised by Nasscom, the leadership team, heading the Indian operations of the global majors, have felt that Chennai comes out a clear winner on the talent front. Though Pune and Gurugram have started making inroads, the city continues to hold sway over other locations in the country.
This has been echoed by Sunil Kumar, Centre Head, World Bank, who had said in an open session that it is the excellent workforce that is available in Chennai which worked in its favour. “Availability of people, scalability and the learning abilities of the resources,” were the key factors for World Bank to set up its largest centre outside its headquarters at Washington DC, in this city. Owing to the nature of the business, with trust and ethics at the core of the business, the talent in this part of the country ranked high. Also, the educational infrastructure here proved to be yet another clincher for World Bank.
In fact, the entire payroll for the World Bank group is done out of Chennai. About 25 per cent of the financial behemoth’s procurement contracts are processed by this centre, Kumar sought to point out.
Incidentally, five large global banks are operating for other centres from this part of India. This reflects the capabilities of the local talent able to adapt itself to global market ends. Also, the local learning finds itself fitting into the global systems. Apart from the spread of many investment banks in the city, sourcing talent, a critical component, has been the key driver. The best quality resource is present in Chennai, observed Uma Ratnam Krishnan, MD, CO-CEO, Barclays Global Service Centre, which employs over 17,000 people here. She too believed “we can truly create a global financial hub in Chennai.”
Increasingly it is the infrastructure, talent and collaborative culture that have worked in Chennai’s favour, concluded Balasubramaniam.
Visit news.dtnext.in to explore our interactive epaper!
Download the DT Next app for more exciting features!
Click here for iOS
Click here for Android