BANGALORE: International consulting firm Accenture is planning to increase its staff strength in India to 35,000 by August, adding 8,000 new jobs, overtaking the US as its largest employment hub so far. This was announced here on Monday by the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, William D. Green.

"Quite simply, India is a key country overall for Accenture, a criticial component in our global delivery network in particular and is integral to our growth strategy," he said.

Accenture at present employs 27,000 persons in India, spread across Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. It has more than 30,000 employees in the U.S.

With the additional head count, the global delivery network will have a total of 65,000 employees, boosting the total strength later this year to 1.50 lakh. Mr. Green said the outsourcing business had grown to 40 per cent of the company's total business from just 17 per cent four years ago. "Is there going to be another phenomenon like India... the answer is no," he said.

The outsourcing business is expanding rapidly and Accenture now had the luxury of choosing its work unlike five years ago. None of its locations was lagging behind because the company was seeing a huge growth across the globe. "Twenty years ago, India was just an outpost. Since then it has truly become a critical part of Accenture," Mr. Green said.

Apart from systems integration and outsourcing, the company was increasingly focusing on business consulting and India provided a great opportunity in this sector. The company is currently not planning any acquisitions because there was no gap in its business to make this necessary.

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