Quick story on this so we can record some numbers. With Big 4 firms growing their India workforces like crazy these days it’s good to get headcount figures down on paper. Or servers. Whatever.
International Accounting Bulletin reports that EY has opened a new 22,000 sq. ft Global Delivery Services (GDS) office in Coimbatore. With a metro population of about 1.6 million people, Coimbatore is the second-largest city in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The new office will be the third EY GDS location in that state alone.
Let’s take a look at Google street view for the KCT Tech Park in which the new office is situated, shall we?
Um. OK. Nevermind. Let’s look elsewhere.
IAB says the new office will be a hub for “AI, data analytics, cloud services, cybersecurity, digital and quality engineering, ERP systems, and financial services platforms.”
“The new facility represents not only an investment in infrastructure but also a commitment to the potential of our talented workforce,” said Tamil Nadu Minister for IT and Digital Services, Palanivel Thiaga Rajan. “EY GDS’s presence is expected to generate employment, enhance skills, and significantly contribute to the state’s digital transformation journey.”
In their article, IAB gives us the global EY GDS headcount: more than 74,000 professionals. The EY organization’s global headcount is a little under 400,000 at last count.
In a July 2023 article about Big 4 firms expanding their workforces in India, Reuters said Coimbatore was the next hot spot for so-called global capability centers due in part to its status as a second-tier (read: cheaper) city.
Here’s what we wrote about it at that time:
Reuters references a forward-looking EY report released in June that says multinationals are to going set up quite a few new “Global Capability Centres (GCCs)” for varied industries in so-called tier-two cities like Jaipur (pop. 3.1 mil), Vadodara (2.175 mil), Kochi (2.1 mil), and Chandigarh (population 1.6 mil for the Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula metropolitan area). Currently multinationals are setting up about 70 such centers a year, the EY report suggests that by 2030, the overall number of new GCC establishments per year could reach 115. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi remain popular sites for GCC squatting in India but the tier-two cities “are becoming popular for new set-ups owing to its improving infrastructure, favorable state policies, and lower real estate and talent costs. Coimbatore in particular is emerging as the next big GCC hub post Chennai in Tamil Nadu.”
Said Reuters, without a hint of irony, that means more professional opportunities and potentially higher salaries in areas away from more globally connected business centres.
Related and enlightening thread posted five months ago on r/India:
My Honest Experience at EY GDS
byu/_Letsconnectt inindia
EY GDS opens first office in Coimbatore, India [International Accounting Bulletin]
EY taking a note out of Amazon’s playbook where the AI Amazon used to monitor their stores that had no cashiers was “Actually Indians”….full speed on AI