TCSMumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT firm by headcount, is upbeat on outsourcing opportunities from Latin America, especially Brazil and Mexico. The company has set rolling a global delivery centre (GDC) in Argentina — its eighth GDC in Latin America — to cater to the growing requirement from the region, said Gabriel Rozman, head of emerging markets, TCS. The firm first set up operations in Argentina seven years ago.

“A lot of outsourcing is going on in Mexico and Brazil, similar to what we saw 10 years ago in the US,” said Rozman. The IT service firm is pursuing 6-7 deals in the range of $100 million in Latin America spanning telecom, banking, insurance, retail sectors amongst others.

Amongst TCS’s existing contracts in Latin America are an over $50 million a year contract from Mexico social security organisation, support services for ABN Amro Brazil, etc.

“Our latest GDC in Argentina will help TCS’s Latin America business grow. Half of the work from this centre would be to support demands from customers in US and Spanish market. Besides, this centre will help our India de-risking strategy,” Rozman added.
Amongst the trigger to set up the GDC, which has capacity for 1,000 people, were customer demand for BPO services and demand from MNCs looking for support in Latin America. About 250 people have commenced functioning in the GDC.

Latin America at present contributes 4.6% to TCS’s annual revenues. “We expect double-digit growth soon in the Middle East market, Africa also looks good. But for now, my focus is Latin America. We are preparing for future expansion,” said Rozman. He could not provide anytime frame by which the Argentina centre will be running at full capacity. In addition to Argentina, TCS has GDCs in Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and Chile.

Meanwhile, the company has seen a revival in business from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) since August, said Venguswamy Ramaswamy, global head, small and medium business.

“We are witnessing traction among clients in sectors like healthcare, education and automobile ancillary,” he said. “TCS started focusing on the SME sector about a year ago, and we have 60 clients till date, all domestic,” he said. TCS now plans to tap clients in the SME space overseas, said Ramaswamy, but did not specify the countries where the company would look for business.

Source: DNAIndia.com