Sierra Atlantic to up headcount by 660

Company also in advanced stage of making an acquisition

California-based Sierra Atlantic, an offshoring enterprise applications company that has three development centres in Hyderabad, plans to increase its headcount here from the present 840 employees to around 1,500 by the end of the calendar year.

Speaking to Business Standard, Sanjay Khendry, vice-president (business development) Sierra Atlantic, said: "Looking at the year gone by, where our growth was around 34 per cent, the company now plans to increase its service offerings and also boost its sales. To meet this demand, we plan to increase the headcount."

The unlisted company that follows a January to December financial year has, according to Khendry, achieved the targets that it had set for itself and wants to raise the bar during the current fiscal.

"During 2004, we had set a conservative growth target because the year before that we had stretched ourselves. But this year, we are looking at a growth of around 35 per cent," Khendry said.

He said that most of the company's revenue came from the clients in North America and this year they expect a significant contribution from the European operations.

"The European companies are coming to terms with offshoring practices and we expect a significant growth from this region. We are also contemplating on having some sort of operations in Japan, but as of now we have not set ourselves any time frame as to when we would have our presence in the region," Khendry said. The company also has operations in the Middle East through partnerships.

Sierra Atlantic, he said, is in an advanced stage of acquiring a company and an announcement is likely to be made soon.

"I would not like to give details in this regard as we were in this position earlier and in the last moment, due to some reasons, the acquisition broke out. But this time we are close to the deal and an announcement can be expected soon," Khendry said.

The company is also looking at pushing itself from being in the small plus category into a decent mid sized company over the next 24 months.