Manpower Services to ramp up Indian operations

"We had a wait-and-watch policy for the past four to five years. Having gauged the potential in the market, we plan to be present in seven locations by the year end. Next year, we will be present in 20 cities and by the end of 2007, we will cover 45 cities with a population of one million plus," said Soumen Basu, executive chairman, Manpower India.

At present, the company has offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and has recently rolled out its Chennai operations. Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune are scheduled to start operations by this July.

In India, it specialises in permanent, temporary and contract recruitment; resource management; employee assessment and training; career transition and organisational consulting services.

Its two specialised division or verticals in India are ITeS and workforce solutions. The latter has under its umbrella industry segments that include IT, banking and financial services and consumer.

"We will add on telecom, aviation and healthcare shortly. These will be hived off into separate verticals as and when they gain traction," he added.

Manpower India will ramp up its candidates on its temporary staffing and contract recruitment rolls from the present 1,500 to between 12,000 and15,000 personnel by the end 2007.