Dutch paint and coatings firm AkzoNobel will double its headcount in India to 4,000 in line with its growth strategy to quadruple sales to one billion euro in the country by 2015.
The company that sees India becoming one of its top three markets in the coming years, surpassing Brazil and China, which are after the USA, said recruiting and retaining the right talent will be key while pursuing its growth here.
"Our biggest challenge is that we should be able to recruit and retain the right kind of people. We should be able to organise in such a way that we are able to bring the best practices into India and use in Indian environment," AkzoNobel Chief Executive Officer Hans Wijers told PTI.
Asked about hiring plans in India, AkzoNobel India Country Director Amit Jain said, "Our employee count is set to double [by 2015]...We are a tad over 2,000 right now and we would have more than 4,000 employees in line with the growth path which we are looking at."
AkzoNobel has stated that it is aiming for the Indian operations to become a Rs 6,800 crore (about one billion euro) entity by 2015. It has announced an investment of Rs 200 crore to set up a new manufacturing plant in Madhya Pradesh to ramp up operations in the country.
During the second quarter ended September 30, 2011, AkzoNobel India's total income stood at Rs 301.5 crore against Rs 239.3 crore in the same period last fiscal, a growth of 26%.
The company, which sells 'Dulux' brand of paints, is betting big on the Indian market, envisaging to become even bigger than Brazil and China in the long term.
"If I think of the longer term potential in India, it will be one of the top three countries of AkzoNobel because that's simply demographics and some of the institutional factors that drive growth, this country has enormous growth potential," Wijers said.
Besides, he also said India is increasingly playing a significant role in research and development as there is movement from the dominance of North America or Western Europe towards other parts of the world.
"We have a centre in Bangalore, we have a big centre in Shanghai and we are doing some interesting research in our Mumbai factory...We see a lot of movement is happening to this part of the world," he said.
India is one of the global centres for colours of cars and most of research is being done at the Bangalore centre and they serve the whole world, he added.
Asked if the company would go through the acquisition route to drive growth in India, Wijers said the firm would definitely look at it but added that it does not have immediate plans as finding the right target at the right price has been an issue.