Indian software and information technology giant Wipro Technologies on Nov. 17 announced it is expanding its Atlanta facility and continuing a local hiring spree that has persisted even in a slow economy.

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Wipro executives from India, the company opened a new floor at its Atlanta software development and training center on Piedmont Road in Buckhead.

Wipro Technologies is a unit of Wipro Ltd., a $5.7 billion company based in Bangalore. Its Atlanta center currently employs 350 people, up from 210 in August.

The new space, a labyrinth of cubicles outfitted with computer workstations, can accommodate an additional 263 employees. The company has enough business lined up to begin filling the majority of these positions in the next few months.

Company leaders told GlobalAtlanta in August that they aimed to employ 500 people in Atlanta by March, but Suraj Prakash, vice president at Wipro's Atlanta Development Center, was more optimistic in light of Tuesday's announcement.

Stopping short of an outright declaration, he offered a "conservative" projection that the Atlanta center would open two additional floors and grow to 1,000 employees within the next three years.

Nearly all the new hires would be recruited locally, about 20 percent of them recent graduates from nearby universities, Mr. Prakash said. The company will begin hiring the next wave of university talent in January.

"We are not in that mode where we would get labor or workforce from anywhere outside the country," Mr. Prakash said. "Going forward we expect that 90 percent plus will be a local workforce. That really is our commitment, and that really is our vision."

This localization is an effort to forge the right cultural bonds with Wipro's U.S. clients, who represent some of the best-known companies in financial services, telecommunications, health care and other fields.

They declined to name specific clients, citing reasons of competitiveness, but officials said that of some 840 companies Wipro Technologies serves globally, nearly 200 are Fortune 1000 firms.

"We work with just about all the large companies that are based out of the U.S.," Mr. Prakash said, adding that he'd like to see Wipro gain more market penetration in Atlanta, home to 13 Fortune 500 firms.

The Atlanta center is a response to a broader trend in the U.S., Wipro's biggest market for outsourcing projects. Firms are diversifying their outsourcing bases, and fewer them are exclusively using India, Mr. Prakash said.

A lot of Wipro Technologies' work has to be performed face to face with the customer, said Sambuddha Deb, executive vice president of global delivery, who flew to Atlanta for the event. Often in the health care and financial industries, projects contain sensitive or private data that can't be legally or securely transferred digitally across borders. Other times, customers just need more immediate attention, he said.

Wipro determines where the work is performed based on the client's needs, said Mr. Deb.

"(The Atlanta center) is not competing with India; it is complementing India," he said.

Out of more than 70 Wipro development centers around the world, Atlanta is one of few the company classifies as "strategic," meaning it was built by Wipro's design and not a client's request.

An integral part of Wipro's global plan, the Atlanta center allows the company to replicate “Bangalore in Atlanta,” implementing in the U.S. the systems it established as a participant in the initial Indian outsourcing boom, Mr. Deb said.

"The difference between Indian companies and the people who went later is that the Indian companies built this model very early and then grew along with the model," he added. "We actually want to transplant the model that has been successful in India back here."

Anurag Saxena, who manages Wipro's account with a large telecommunications company in Atlanta, said companies no longer outsource to Indian firms simply because they have cheap labor. They're competitive after years of fine-tuning their model, which now reflects a sensitivity to customer needs that's hard to provide from across the world.

"We do a lot of consulting, which means that you have to understand the client processes, client culture, the way they do their business," Mr. Saxena told GlobalAtlanta. "You can't do that sitting 10,000 miles away."

Wipro has not been without setbacks in Atlanta. After selecting the city over Austin, Texas; Richmond, Va., and other U.S. cities in August 2007, the company briefly delayed the Atlanta Development Center's opening last October.

The slower-than-expected start was understandable, given that the company's decision to locate here came as a global recession was beginning to ferment, said Charles Whatley, director of commerce and entrepreneurship with the Atlanta Development Authority.

The authority pledged a grant of up to $1 million from its "deal-closing fund" to help lure Wipro to Atlanta and provided help with building permits and other issues. The grant money is contingent on Wipro's providing 1,000 jobs and is released progressively each time Wipro reaches a new benchmark, Mr. Whatley told GlobalAtlanta.

In a thriving economy, Mr. Whatley is confident that Wipro would've already far surpassed its own job projections, but even with the wait, the authority hasn't withdrawn its incentive package.

"We were patient and realistic; there's no reason to punish companies coming into your city because of economic conditions beyond their control or anyone's guess," Mr. Whatley said.

In fact, if all goes as planned, Wipro could still "meet and beat" its commitment to the Atlanta Development Authority milestone by the end of next summer, said Mr. Prakash, the vice president at the Atlanta center.

"Today there is a downturn and we are amongst the very few organizations which are creating jobs in an otherwise down economy," said Mr. Prakash. "With a severe downturn with a lot of layoffs, I think we are a reason of hope to many."

Mr. Whatley, who last year visited the Wipro global headquarters in Bangalore, said the Atlanta Development Authority hopes to be able to give Wipro all of the grant money, which amounts to $1,000 per job created. 

"We're excited about having Wipro here, and we definitely want to see them grow," Mr. Whatley said. "This is definitely money we don't want to ever have to get back. We want to pay this out, and we're looking forward to it." 

For more information, click here. 

2010 The Agio Press, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without expressed permission.