IT cos start outsourcing business development

Priya Padmanabhan

BANGALORE: Twenty-seven Bangalore-based employees of European IT services major LogicaCMG are involved in functions such as market research, knowledge process outsourcing, content writing, collateral building and working out marketing propositions.

This work is not at the behest of a client, but to fortify LogicaCMG’s own main business development division back in Europe.

“The planning into this Strategic Business Development Unit (SBDU) started last year and then we opened this unit in Bangalore with 27 people in February 2006,” said Mahesh Desai, business development director, LogicaCMG, Global services delivery. He hopes to expand the team strength of this unit to 50 by the year-end.

“Typically, business development is done in respective geographies. In Bangalore, we don’t do any cold calls. But we wanted to leverage the power of the local talent here, Internet and market research to help our clients connect their business imperatives with the services that we can deliver,” said Desai.

Another software product company, MetricStream has also started a small sales team in Bangalore that looks at generating marketing leads for the company in other markets. The company’s 100-member team in Bangalore is responsible for the end-to-end development of the company’s 12 product offerings.

Shelley Archambeau, the company’s CEO said, “Our Indian development center is not an afterthought but something that we have been evolving over the last few years.”

It appears that besides sending client projects offshore, companies are also looking to create new job roles and divisions internally to effectively enhance their own sales and marketing plans. Many activities like payroll processing and back office activities have been shifting to India. Now it’s the turn of business development. Would the executive role be the next to move offshore?

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