Randstad Digital eyes GCCs in India to drive growth in its IT business

Randstad Digital's focus verticals include banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), automotive and aerospace, and high tech verticals

Randstad Digital, the digital arm of Randstad, is looking to tap into global capability centres (GCCs) in India to drive revenue through its people-centric approach.

Randstad Digital is approximately a $3 billion business within talent firm Randstad, which clocked revenues of 25.4 billion euros (about $27 billion) in 2023.

Randstad Digital was formed in 2023. As part of this, all information-technology (IT) recruitment business was transferred from Randstad India to Randstad Digital.

User experience, analytics, and cybersecurity solutions were added. About 30 per cent of Randstad Digital’s business is solution-based, similar to the work done by IT services providers.

It has a team of about 20,000.

 

“The biggest acceleration a GCC needs for scaling up is a partner who can bring a right talent strategy with a flexible model and help them establish their brand. That is where we play a big role. Many service providers see GCCs as a threat but we see them as a big opportunity,” Venu Lambu, chief executive officer, Randstad Digital, told Business Standard.

In January this year, Lambu joined Randstad from LTIMindtree, where he served as president and executive board member.

“We help GCCs to scale up by developing end-to-end talent strategies which also include talent deployment. Moreover, for organisations setting up fresh captives in India, we provide comprehensive solutions to establish their brand in the Indian talent marketplace. In fact, for some GCCs, we are already partnered with their in-country operations, which helps us serve their GCC talent requirements by executing seamless talent movement from one country to the other,” Lambu said.

According to a Nasscom-Zinnov report, India has 1,600 GCCs with a talent base of 1.66 million. “Most major enterprises are looking to set up GCCs in India purely as a strategic asset that can deliver quality and innovation, as opposed to just cost savings. The primary reason behind this is the country’s reputation as a tech talent hub. Hence global organisations are looking to source fresh graduates as well as senior tech professionals to build a solid talent pipeline that can deliver out of India. GCCs in India are no longer just back office centres, instead, they serve for complex business processes involving knowledge process outsourcing, tech, product development, and analytics,” Lambu said.

Randstad Digital’s focus verticals include banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI); automotive and aerospace; and high-tech.  

Like IT services providers, Randstad Digital uses a global delivery model with delivery centres in India, Romania, Latin America, and Quebec (Canada).

“In Europe, we focus on the automotive and aerospace sector. In the US, we work a lot in the area of data centres, infrastructure management, and cloud modernisation,” Lambu said.

“Talent is the key in any digital transformation and we, being a talent-centric organisation, know how to deploy and manage talent. You can’t do the best GenAI use case if you don’t have access to the best GenAI talent,” Lambu said.

As part of this, the company has created a GenAI Talent Hub which is an ecosystem of people with specialised talent (or Pods as they call it) tailored to each stage of responsible AI adoption across the business value chain.

On May 16, Randstad Digital acquired Torc, an AI-powered talent marketplace platform, with specific focus on Latin America, the US, and India.