IBM has announced that it will increase its business process outsourcing (BPO) resources in India during 2010 by at least 5,000 people.

The company currently operates BPO facilities in a number of Indian cities, including Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad and Gurgaon, and indicates that any expansion will likely take place in existing locations. It hopes to capitalise on an anticipated uptick in demand for BPO services during the coming year.

"We plan to focus more in the services sector by opening more BPO centres in India," said Selby Mascarenhas, IBM Poland’s Senior Advisory Consultant. "We would recruit at least 5,000 people to support this expansion."

Mascarenhas revealed that the company did not hire any new employees in India last year, and neither did it implement redundancies, being that “Indian workers are cost-effective compared to their counterparts abroad”.

IBM made a significant number of redundancies in its US and European operations during 2009, as many as 5,000 according to some reports.

A recent survey by the National Outsourcing Association has found that IT managers in UK-based businesses will outsource more this year to improve their growth opportunities, while public sector organisations may do so in response to budget reductions. The research also claimed that companies will demand more capacity from their outsourcing providers as the economy begins to register growth later this year.