Moncton On The Radar As Indian Tech Giant Infosys Plans Canadian Expansion
MONCTON – Infosys (NYSE: INFY), an Indian multinational IT services company, is exploring Moncton and a few other cities as a possible site of its new office in Canada.
“We’re exploring new cities where we could set up our hub and do the incremental hiring. New Brunswick – Moncton – is one of the potential locations,” said president Ravi Kumar. “The reason is very simple – it is a region which has more than 19,000 people who work in technology and business processing functions, not just for Canadian clients but also for clients in other parts of the world.”
Infosys helps companies digitize and improve digital experience for their customers. It also helps with digital infrastructure, and offers business processing outsourcing and consulting services.
The nearly 40-year-old company has been on an expansion spree in North America since 2017. In September, after hiring 13,000 people for its six centres in the U.S., it committed to hiring another 12,000 employees over the next two years.
Its expansion plans in Canada are less dramatic, but significant.
In the last two years, Infosys doubled the number of its staff in Toronto and Vancouver to 2,000. It also has presence in Calgary. Now it wants to hire another 2,000 people across the country in the next 12 to 18 months.
“A lot of large enterprises are working on a digital journey and a digitization of their landscapes. And for digital capabilities and digital skills, you need to be co-creating and co-innovating along with your clients,” Kumar said.
“We have a large pool of talent in India, but digital skills and technology skills need closer proximity to the enterprises you’re servicing.”
In the U.S., Infosys targeted experienced professionals, but also has a pipeline of talent coming from universities and colleges to fill positions in software development, tech analysis, cloud-based technologies and others. Kumar says the hires include STEM and non-STEM graduates.
In the process of growing its footprint in the U.S., Kumar said Canada came up as an attractive geography to service clients all over North America.
“Canada has a dual purpose for us, one is to cater to local clients, but also cater to U.S.-based clients as a near shore centre,” he said.
The strategy in Canada is similar – hire and train from universities and colleges, and set up offices. Toronto and Vancouver were easy choices for expansion because of their closer proximity to clients in the west and east coasts of the U.S. Additionally, Toronto is a financial and healthcare hub for the Canadian market, Kumar said.
But for its third Canadian office, Kumar said Infosys is “evaluating three or four cities,” including Moncton, Montreal and Calgary.
“We’re not only looking from the local workforce, we also think we can hire from schools and colleges in Canada and place them in New Brunswick,” he said.
“It is a region that has an advanced telecom infrastructure, you have a vast fiber optic network, good quality of living, competitive real estate, the talent cost are very economically viable.”
A bilingual workforce, and a time zone that’s not too far from Europe and Eastern U.S. are also what makes Moncton worth exploring.
Kumar said his team has spoken to local officials and companies, and have sounded the idea with clients, as part of the due diligence process.
“If we choose Moncton, we will set up a local office, we will create more jobs locally, we will hire from schools and colleges in Canada, we will potentially hire from the local universities, and train and actually set them up with jobs,” he said.
The work will be various digital jobs, including cybersecurity, technology analysis, digital experience, business processing jobs, and others. Infosys may also explore creating centres of excellence for certain industries, like oil and gas, and utilities, to cater to global markets.
Kumar says the company plans to identify the selected city in the next couple of weeks.
He said the expansion in Canada isn’t related to the way the U.S. has been managing Covid-19 mitigation. But Covid-19 did increase demand and growth.
Its Q2 2020 financial report shows that in the six months leading up to September 30, it generated 2.2 percent more revenue than the year before, at nearly $6.5-billion (U.S.), with its digital division growing its share significantly to almost 44 percent of the sales.
“More digital skills are getting consumed because enterprises are becoming more virtual…so there is more demand for us in this time,” he said.