PricewaterhouseCoopers leverages Government of West Bengal’s ITeS thrust

Kolkata, October 8, 2005 - West Bengal Government’s strong focus on ITeS has provided PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) the opportunity to develop innovative approaches to offshoring services and project management activities. Professionals from PwC’s Centre of Excellence in Kolkata are providing offshore services to the rest of the PwC world and to its clients.

One such instance is of PwC UK having chosen to work with PwC’s team in Kolkata in delivering innovative offshore services. This is a mechanism by which highly trained professionals from Kolkata work together with their British colleagues. As everyone in the team is connected together by a common technology platform, it is as good as the team is sitting next door, and not 5000 miles away!

Says John Minards, Head of Assurance Services, PwC Midlands and the major stakeholder in this initiative –“PwC UK has chosen to work with PwC in India as Kolkata has a cosmopolitan population with highly qualified English speaking professionals, its proximity with the rest of the world, excellent infrastructure facilities, low cost of operations and ongoing support of the local government to ITeS sector in particular”.

Sanjoy Sen, Partner PwC Midlands, who leads the offshoring initiatives for the UK Firm and has worked very closely with John on this initiative says:

"When I met our Hon'ble IT Minister at a London roadshow last year, I was delighted to hear about the fantastic progress that the State has made in supporting the BPO/ITeS revolution in the last eight years that I have lived outside of Kolkata. This complements Kolkata's natural advantages in terms of the availability of highly skilled English speaking people, the comparatively lower costs of doing business and the commitment and positive attitude of the people of Kolkata. My British colleagues also value the rich colonial heritage of Kolkata and the warmth of the people". Sanjoy is relocating to his hometown Kolkata to lead this growing initiative between UK/Europe and India.

Similar projects are being carried out by PwC in Kolkata for PwC Firms in other European countries too.

The State of West Bengal with Kolkata as its capital has seen a phenomenal overall growth in its economy over the last few years. The State has been focusing on IT and offshoring/ITeS, and the Information and Technology department has been a strong enabler of this initiative. Kolkata is witnessing the highest growth in IT space in the country. Against the national growth of 34% Kolkata is clocking a growth rate of 72% in the IT sector. Services like call centre, back office shared services operations, data processing and analysis, tax and legal processing, etc. have been included within ITeS. To this end, the State is already working very closely with PwC and similar global MNCs and firms to develop a strategic ITeS 'Way Forward'.

ENDS