The head of Tech Mahindra in the UK and Ireland says he believes the Indian IT giant can “very easily” tap into the excellent pool of talent in Greater Manchester.
Bhushan Patil was speaking to BusinessCloud at the official launch of Tech Mahindra’s first Northern office in the UK, located at Laser House in Salford Quays.
The event was also attended by Salford City Mayor Paul Dennett, MIDAS chief executive Tim Newns and Vikram Nair, president of Europe, Middle East and Africa at Tech Mahindra, who described the move as a vote of confidence in the UK economy.
Patil told BusinessCloud that the two key drivers behind the new office was to be closer to TalkTalk, its largest customer in the region, and to have access to the region’s rich talent pool.
“It is important to have the right skills and there’s a thriving ecosystem of universities here which we believe we can tap into very easily to get the right set of people that we need to create the new age technology solutions,” he said.
“Over the last few years, Greater Manchester has really transformed itself into a thriving region. That means that if we want to attract talent from India or within the UK we can say that this is a place where they can work on great solutions with us but they can also have a great work-life balance.
“We want to grow the office to a 150-strong team over the next two to three years, but we also want to become a good attractive place to showcase how you can work closely with academia and industry.”
The move was also hailed by Tim Lewns, CEO of Manchester’s inward investment agency MIDAS, as an “exciting development”.
“We’ve actually been working with Tech Mahindra on and off for about six or seven years, trying to persuade them to do this,” he told BusinessCloud.
“It was always going to client-led in the way that they actually go into new markets and go into new areas. Their relationship with TalkTalk is what’s driven this particular new office; they’ve obviously just literally across the car park from them.
“We’ve seen London’s economy transformed over the last five years by tech really driving the growth and likewise we’ve seen that here locally, both from the indigenous companies that we have here like RentalCars and The Hut Group, but that’s also supplemented by international companies choosing to make this their home as well.”
Speaking at the event, Salford City Mayor Paul Dennett described MediaCityUK as one of the most successful regeneration projects that the UK has ever seen, adding that it is set to double in size over the next 10 years.
“The reason that places like MediaCityUK are great places to invest is because we’ve got a great partnership here,” he said.
“We’ve also got a real vision for creating a smart city, a digital and tech hub and ecosystem working with a whole multitude of different partners.”
Commenting on Tech Mahindra’s office opening, he added: “This is another in series of strong investment announcements that generate high quality jobs in Salford and Greater Manchester but also continue the story of growth that Salford has seen for the last 10 years.