HCL eyes $7.5 bn business in Brazil

NEW DELHI, INDIA: After the completion of a business year in Brazil, HCL Technologies today announced to it would start a multilingual service desk facility there to support its global and local customers in Rio Grande do Sul.

During an interaction with CIOL, an HCL executive said that the company sees huge opportunity in local companies failing to renew their contract in the country, which amounts to 50 per cent of the $15 billion IT and IT enabled services in Brazil.

“Brazil is the eighth largest IT and IT enabled services market in the world. Brazilian market is estimated to be around $15 billion for IT and ITES,” said R Srikrishna, executive vice president, HCL Technologies Infrastructure Services Division (HCL ISD).

“According to a Gartner report, half of the contract for IT / ITES in Brazil is not renewed with the same company due to a variety of reasons. We see huge opportunity for us in this market. Though the contracts are not renewed every year, as it may be spread over five years, we see huge opportunities in securing the contracts that are missed by other companies,” he added.

Srikrishna also added that HCL Technologies is already present in seven top IT markets and it was natural for the company to enter into the eighth largest IT and ITES market as part of its expansion plans.

“Our entry into Brazil is in line with our strategy to penetrate into the Latin American market. Brazil is a starting point for us in this region,” said Srikrishna.

This multilingual facility of HCL Technologies will deliver service in Portuguese and Spanish to the customers in Latin America region. Srikrishna mentioned that HCL Technologies had been providing service in Portuguese and Spanish language to some of its global customers namely Readers Digest and Nokia, and part of their customers are present in this region as well.

“By opening a centre locally, we will be able to provide better service to our clients. We have been providing service in Portuguese, which is widely spoken in Brazil, and Spanish, which is spoken in neighbouring countries like Argentina. However there is a difference between the Portuguese spoken in Brazil and Portugal. Similarly there is a difference between the Spanish spoken in Spain with that spoken in Mexico, Argentina and other parts of Latin America. By coming here we have been able to overcome the gap,” said Srikrsihna.

HCL Technologies currently employs over 150 people supporting both global and local customers at this centre. Though the cost of delivering the service from Brazil is higher compared to providing it from India, it is lesser that the cost compared to UK or US.

“The cost of delivering service from this center is lesser than that from facilities in US, UK and Europe. However India still has cost advantage. The cost of service in India is 30 to 40 per cent cheaper,” added Srikrishna.

From this facility of HCL technologies will look for business from domestic market as well as target multinationals present in the region.