Capgemini says it will make India its global innovation hub

Updated on: Saturday, September 18, 2010

Global IT service provider Capgemini today said it will make India its global hub of innovations and as a part of this, would start eight more Centres for Excellence (CoE) to increase the total number of such centres in India to 20.

"India will be our global hub for innovations," Capgemini Smart Energy Services VP-Global Leader Perry Stoneman told reporters here today, while launching the Capgemini smart energy hub for the power utilities.

Capgemini had announced plans to hire 17,000 more work force in India earlier this year. The company recruited 10,000 professionals this year to reach a total employee number of 28,000 as on August, in India. The company will hire the
remaining 7,000 by the end of this year.

Energy Utilities and Chemicals (EUC) section of Capgemini, which contributes over 13 per cent of its global revenue, is looking for a big leap in revenues and work force in the coming years, Stoneman said.

The Smart Energy Segment, a subset of EUC, currently employs 500 people world-wide and within next 3-years, the number of employees will be increased to 4,000, Stoneman said.

According to Stoneman, Smart Energy is a new concept in India, which helps utilities reduce their total waste of energy or technical and distribution (T&D) losses. India's current T&D losses stood at 33 per cent which is one of the
highest in the world.

The smart energy system by Capgemini helps utilities manage their load, flow of electricity and theft. With the help of smart metres and censors, it can prevent power theft, Stoneman said.

Over 10-million such smart metres are used world-wide through 100 contracts, Stoneman said, adding, "the cost of installing such a smart metre will cost utilities USD 250 in the US, but will be comparatively lesser in India."

The smart energy can be useful in water and gas utilities as well, he said.

Capgemini EUC India Vice-President Somnath Chatterjee, said the company is in talks with state-run as well as private players in India.

"We are in talks with many players in India but we cannot reveal any names as we haven't reached any contracts," Chatterjee said.

The capacity addition in generation and transmission and the huge losses in T&D make India an attractive market, he said, adding "the installation of the world-class facility will be highly beneficial for the utilities as they will able to reduce the losses from generation to distribution."

Capgemini says it will make India its global innovation hub

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