Kanbay International plans to expand its facilities in India

With India being its focal point in terms of manpower and technology, Kanbay International Inc, US-headquartered IT services firm focusing on the financial services industry, plans to expand its development facilities in India to house about 6,500 professionals in 2006.

The company currently employs about 4,700 professionals, about 80 per cent of its global work force, at its development centres in Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai.

Kanbay is expected to invest $ 50 million in infrastructure development globally and a substantial part of that will be used for expansion in Hyderabad and Pune.

The company is also reported to have acquired land in Mahindra city, a special economic zone in Chennai, for future expansion. However, the company declined to divulge details on this.

The company sees good business potential for its business intelligence (BI) services as BI is seen as a growing trend in banking outsourcing. As part of the BI practice, the company offers solutions and services for capturing and extracting data from multiple sources and assembling it into information for decision making process.

At present, BI practice accounts for 15-20 per cent of the company's total revenue.

Sudeep Nadkarni, global practice leader, business intelligence, Kanbay, told Business Standard that the company was building systems and platforms which would help companies analyse the data and help reduce the cost of data management.

"By utilising our services, companies have reduced their cost of data management by 25-30 per cent," he added.

The company sees growth opportunities for utility-based management services and customer information management services in India. With respect to the BI practice, Kanbay now has over 350 professionals dedicated to business intelligence for financial services. Over 1,000 professionals have been trained to work on BI-related projects.

Kanbay International's service offerings includes business process and technology advisory services; software package selection and integration; application development, maintenance, and support services.

It also provides specialised services such as business intelligence, testing, and application management outsourcing.

It offers its services primarily to banking institutions, securities and investment firms, and insurance companies across the globe. It reported a global revenue of $230.5 million in 2005.

It started India operations in Pune in 1995 with 30 professionals.