Kelly To Enlarge Footprint In India
13 April 2005
By K. S. ANANDAN
Kelly To Enlarge Footprint In India
Kelly Services, a leading global staffing service company, is planning to increase its footprint in India by setting up offices in Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.
Speaking to Express, Rolf E. Kleiner, senior vice-president and general manager, international, Kelly Services, said, “India is a promising market for us. We will be setting up three more offices in India.” “ The Chennai office will be ready within a month. Other two will be ready in the next three months,” Kleiner said.
The staffing solution provider has already five offices in India, located in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. The 60-year-old recruitment giant, which started operations five years ago in India, presently headhunts over 5,000 people for major Indian clients. “We want to double our operations within the next 12-18 months.” In Fact, the company has chalked out a strategy to make India as one of its top five revenue earning countries.
Realising the huge potential of Indian knowledge-based industries, “the company will be keenly following on pharmaceuticals, biotech, IT and engineering industries,” maintained Kleiner.
Explaining the role of staffing companies, he said, on an average Indian companies are selecting just one candidate out of 16 they interview. It’s a huge waste of time and money. We have highly proven systems and practices in place to eliminate this waste and provide qualified professionals to industry. He, however, added that Indian companies are positively adopting professional placement services.
He observed that the worldwide job market trend is moving towards contract jobs. “There are many project-based jobs coming up in India. We will play a major role in the contract job market when it evolves in India,” he said.
Says Dhirendra Shantilal, vice-president & managing director, Asia, Kelly Service, “Kelly has strong presence in permanent, contract and professional and technical resource space world over.” In professional and technical resource space, Kelly has four divisions catering to scientific, IT, Finance and BPO space.
“We want to be a major player in the placement market in India covering the entire spectrum of the market,” he added.
Headquartered in Michigan, USA, the $4.3 billion Kelly Services supplies about 8 lakh employees annually to its 2 lakh customers through more than 2,500 companies operating in 27 countries.
In Asia, the company has 25 offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand, including BTI Consultants, a leading Asian search and selection company. It works with 95 percent of the Fortune 500 companies as well as leading technology companies around the world.