Microsoft NSI Sapient Expanding Operations in India

A lot of the 40-or-so Microsoft National Systems Integrators are companies with a presence across several U.S. regions. But as an announcement today by Sapient that it is expanding its presence in Bangalore, India, illustrates, some of them are super-national companies that haven’t quite reached the scope of a Microsoft Global Systems Integrator -- yet.

Sapient is a 20-year-old, Boston-based company with 7,822 employees and nearly $640 million in 2009 revenues that specializes in financial and government services. The Microsoft Gold Certified Partner firm has its own Microsoft Center of Excellence with 1,000 employees and Microsoft competencies in SOA and Business Process, Custom Development and Information Worker, according to the company Website.

The NASDAQ-listed firm has been growing fast. It was just ranked 45th in Fortune Magazine’s annual fastest-growing companies list and ranked second on the magazines list for profit growth. Second quarter revenues were up 36 percent year-over-year.

Sapient will nearly double the size of its Bangalore facility to about 100,000 square feet, an area which will include a fitness center and an expanded employee cafeteria. "The company plans to nearly double its workforce in Bangalore by the end of 2010, as well as continue expansion in its two other Indian markets: Gurgaon and Noida," Sapeint said in a statement.

The size of that workforce isn’t precisely spelled out, but Sapient’s Asia-Pacific delivery staff has been expanding rapidly over the past year. According to a document for investors, Sapient added 1,813 employees in the 12 months ending June 30. Of those, 395 were services delivery employees in North America, 74 were in Europe and 1,230 were in the Asia-Pacific region. Sapient also has Asia-Pacific offices in Singapore, Australia and China.

Of those Asia-Pacific offices, the Indian locations are clearly the most strategic to the firm’s multinational operations and employ the bulk of the Asia-Pacific staff. According to the company’s 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in February, “During 2009 (the twelve months ended December 31, 2009), we continued to utilize our India-based effort on our Global Distributed Delivery (“GDD”) projects.

"Our proprietary GDD methodology enables us to provide high quality, cost-effective solutions under accelerated project schedules," the 10-K states. "By engaging India’s highly skilled technology specialists, we can provide services at lower total costs as well as offer a continuous delivery capability resulting from time differences between India and the countries we serve."

Posted by Scott Bekker on September 01, 2010