HP expands Indian outsourcing operations

Hewlett-Packard has revealed that the $1 billion "next generation" Enterprise Services business plan announced in June 2010 will centre on three new outsourcing facilities being built in India.

The centres, to be located in India's southern IT hubs, Bangalore and Chennai, will take up around 150,000 square metres, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

In June, HP flagged that its IT services revamp would see 9,000 roles shed over the coming years, however it did not disclose its Indian expansion plans at the time.

Tuesday's announcement comes just two months after UK union Unite accused HP - the UK's Ministry of Defence's largest IT service provider - of exporting roles when it announced it would retrench a further 1,300 more services workers on top of the 900 it initially declared.

The union also said its Indian members that work for HP had been complaining of "unreasonable" workloads at the time.

The centres expand on HP's existing Indian business process outsourcing operation, MphasiS, which currently employs around 38,000 staff.

"India offers a complete range of capabilities in applications, infrastructure technology and business process outsourcing for global and domestic clients," HP told the WSJ.