Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Though PA already operates a technology centre in the US at Princeton, New Jersey, the appeal of a West Coast facility that can function within the local times zones and benefit from the significant brainpower of the local workforce is appealing.

“We already serve clients from Princeton, but it’s better if you are actually there,” said PA Consutlancy’s head of technology, Alec MacAndrew.

“With the time difference it’s like serving New York from London. While the company has not got to the stage of implementing any formal plans, the chances of moving in are high under the right circumstances.

“We are considering the biotech and hi-tech – particularly IT – industries on the Californian West Coast, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. If we find the right combination of people and location, it is likely that we will go ahead with something there.”

Definitely going ahead is the technology centre in Bangalore, where PA already has around 70 people providing consultancy services. It will become PA Consulting’s third technology centre after Princeton and the Cambridge Technology Centre in Melbourn, which employ 300 technologists between them.

The development is a response to the region’s rapid economic growth, which has increased the presence of global companies there and initiated a dramatic expansion of an educated labour market.

According to PA, over 10 million students are currently in Indian higher education whilst the economy grows at an estimated 7.9 per cent per annum, allowing PA the opportunity to bolster its resources on its UK and US-based product and process engineering assignments.

PA can then provide further expertise locally for pharmaceutical, electrical, electronic and other consumer product manufacturers based in the Asian region, and to help support PA’s expanding technology ventures programme.

“People in India will be providing resources for global projects, which really gives us a third option at the company,” said MacAndrew.

“Our bigger clients already have R & D and manufacturing in particular in the Indian sub-continent. These will be served by the 50 new staff who are set to come in over the next four or five years.

“Our medium-term ambition is to have a resource there that can serve both the Western companies and the Indian firms.”

MacAndrew believes that rather than have a negative impact on growth at its existing technology operations in Melbourn and Princeton, the new expansion will help underpin an acceleration in growth at the sites.

“The fact that we are able to provide services more broadly will make it possible to access more projects than in the past, which will accelerate growth at both Princeton and Melbourn.”