New York – Evalueserve, a Knowledge Process Outsourcing firm, announced yesterday that it planned to add 600 new employees by June of next year.
Evalueserve has a global presence, with sales personnel present in each of the 7 continents and operations teams in India, China, and Chile. They provide a range of custom research, analytics, and intellectual property solutions. Evalueserve’s analysts provide coverage of multiple industries in more than 50 languages. The company has five core competencies: Investment Research, Business Research, Market Research, Data and Financial Analysis, and Intellectual Property Research.
The company now plans to expand its current headcount of 2,400 global employees to 3,000 professionals in June of 2009. The bulk of the new hirings are set to take place in India, which Mr. Ashish Gupta, global COO, expects “will remain a major hub for [Evalueserve’s] overall operations and play a dominant role in the next five years.” In addition, the company is planning on opening a facility in Romania which would provide the company with an office near Europe which has strong language capabilities. The final piece of news to come out of Evalueserve yesterday was that the company was considering an IPO at some point in the next two years depending on market conditions. More information on Evalueserve’s announcement can be found here.
The last time that Evalueserve announced similar plans was in May of 2006, when they announced intentions to add 500 new employees. At that time, Marc Vollenweider, CEO and co-founder, claimed that the company was adding six to eight new clients each month. More information on that round of hiring can be found here.
India seems an interesting choice for Evalueserve to focus on as past blogs of ours have cited a shortage of skilled professionals and high level of inflation in the country as well as increased competition from destinations such as the Philippines, Russia, China, Poland and Hungary. A recent report on KPO from KPMG also claims that India is unlikely to be the sole player in the KPO market and could face competition from countries such as Canada, Australia, Singapore and South Africa.
It has been about three years since Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat was first published, yet from this recent news out of Evalueserve, it would seem that the globalization themes it discusses are no less true today. Various sources have estimated that the KPO industry’s value will be anywhere between US $10 billion and US $17 billion by 2010, just two short years away. In a couple of recent blogs (most notably Who loses when the Research Settlement Ends? and Clear and Noble Intentions) Integrity has discussed the trouble that some Independent research shops are facing. It is refreshing to know that the regulatory issues and changing environment of the research world in general has not adversely affected everyone.
*Note: Integrity Research Associates has hired Evalueserve in the past to conduct various research projects.