MUMBAI: Marketing solutions provider Epsilon is planning to consolidate its global delivery in India and add about 500 employees this year to take the total to 1,800, a top company executive said.

"Currently, we are at 1,300 or so employees... We are aggressively growing, almost as fast as we can here, we have a plan to get to 1,800 this year and keep going from there," Epsilon President, Technology, Wayne Townsend told PTI here.

Epsilon delivers strategy, analytics, creative and technology solutions and is looking for ways to find the right talent to scale that for global delivery which is more cost efficient, he said.

"So, we had historically delivered largely from the US with contract relationships in various parts around the world and we are looking to consolidate that delivery in a place that has both -- great access to talent and is more cost effective. India has the right mix," Townsend said.

The company is focused on hiring more in the mid-tier of the hierarchy.

"We actually do have a fair number of managers, directors and a we have a lot of more senior talent that we have hired away from competitors with experience. I think that it was important that we started off that way. We do have young talent coming out of university as well that we know we're developing and training over the course of the year," he added.

Echoing his view, Epsilon Country Head Ashish Sinha said the company will hire middle management but the volumes will be more at the junior levels.

"Creative, analytics, consulting, research, these are the areas that we'll be looking at. And again, since it is new businesses we are starting so we can't hire many junior level people, we need the top management first then we'll build the team around it," he said.

Talking about diversity in workplace, he said, it is critical and the company has set a 50:50 goal in two years.

"We are very aware that at the end of the day, our end clients are 50 pct men 50 pct women, so you want an organisation reflective of that.

"In technology it's difficult as the talent market has fewer women. We have set a goal that in next two years 50 pct of our employees would be women. For this we have put referral programmes," he added.

On people of Indian origin wanting to come back, Sinha said the number has surged as they believe there is a lot of action in the Asia Pacific region and India.

"It has always been there, but its become much more now, its increased heavily. I think lots of folks in the US with Indian origin believe that a lot of action is going on in AsiaPac and India. Some of them may fully not agree with some of the policies that the new US President is going to roll out and so its also about convincing them to come back," he added.

One of the major challenge is the compensation and benefits that they are getting in the US, Sinha added.

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