After Infosys, it is MphasiS, the business process outsourcing company owned by EDS that has decided to make Pune its largest delivery centre in India. Total staff would go up to 9,000 plus, spread across their facilities at Magarpatta City, Eon near Kharadi and their BPO at Kalyaninagar.

MphasiS has over 6,400 employees working across the three facilities right now. “Our development centre at Magarpatta has about 2,500 employees and an equal number would be added to our new facility,” said the chief technology officer (CTO) of MphasiS, Sai Kumar, who was in the city recently.

Globally, MphasiS has a headcount of 27,000. Pune would, however, have to share this slot with Chennai where 3,000 resources would be added over a period of time. The existing workforce is engaged in working in verticals such as application services, BPO as well as infrastructure management services.

The reason why Pune is being looked at as a favoured option is the ready availability of talent coupled with other factors such as government support and an improving infrastructure, said Kumar.

“Pune has a rich history of academic institutions which produce some of the best and brightest talent. Additionally, there exists a good skill mix and resources who have expertise on various types of technologies and platforms, said company officials.

They said the STPI, NASSCOM and other government and semi-government bodies have helped during the set up and smooth functioning of the offices in Pune. “The IT industry in Pune is well organised and together we have been able to address local challenges well,” they said.

Socio-economic factors such as a better working environment, proximity to larger centres like Mumbai and improving infrastructure are also some others reasons for selecting Pune. “The government is now encouraging private-public partnership and we look positively towards better infrastructure in the city,” the officials added.

“Both Pune and Chennai would be our strategic committed delivery centres in India with most of the outsourcing and off-shoring business now being directed to these two locations,” Kumar said, adding, with a large presence in Mumbai and other metros, the company is also planning to make inroads into smaller cities.

“Bangalore has become overcrowded and hence we are focusing on other cities in terms of IT development. Pune with its large talent pool is a good choice. We have also recently moved to cities like Indore and Ahmedabad,” Kumar said, adding that in terms of cost, having a base in Pune could prove beneficial on some counts. However, costs of real estate, talent and other variables are on the increase and one must look at Pune from a value addition perspective rather than a pure cost perspective, he said.

Though the CTO did not specify the timeframe by which both cities would develop into the largest delivery centres, he said the process has already begun. “All new accounts and delivery would now be diverted to Pune and the two cities would develop as strategic centre for MphasiS solution,” said Kumar.

With a stronghold in the field of IT, banking and airlines industry the company is also planning to make inroads into the growing retail and health care sector in India.