Satyam Computer Services has bucked talk of a skills shortage by unveiling a 150 seat regional solutions hub in North Sydney, and plans to hire 100 Australian graduates.
The Indian outsourcing giant will run high-level IT operations for its clients from the centre, including data warehousing and managed services. The new office complements an existing one in Sydney (100 staff) and Satyam's Melbourne development centre (450 staff).
Deepak Nangia, country manager, Satyam Australia and New Zealand, said Australia was the right place for the centre, which will also Asia Pacific customers, due to the availability of high-level skills.
"[This office] is not about having an army of another thousand developers sitting there and crunching code or designing software," he said.
"The DNA of this office is going to be people who are solution architects. They are designers, they are commercial modellers, they are integration experts."
Australia had the capability to provide Satyam's desired skillset, he said. The company is hunting skills in business intelligence, data warehousing and enterprise applications.
"Australia is a very mature market and we've learned that over the last five to six years we've been here," said Nangia.
"The education system is coming out with people who have the ability to look beyond development. They're far more well-rounded from the education system ... much higher than anywhere else in the region."
As part of growing its local operations, Satyam will sponsor Australian university students through the ACS (Australian Computer Society) Foundation scholarship program.
The company will hire 50 graduates through the Foundation during the next few of months. Another 50 will be hired next year.
"Basically we are working with ACS on the same program and they will be helping give us access to students across the country's universities, instead of us talking to each university separately," said Nangia.
The company would not reveal the value of the scholarship investment.
"Our focus is to become a local company. When you talk of Satyam in Australia we want [you] to think of Satyam Australia as an Australian company," said Satyam director and senior vice president Asia Pacific Virender Aggarwal.
"These are fresh graduates, so we're kind of beginning to contribute to job creation here, and also to build an environment where cultural issues faced with customers no longer exist."
Currently, 42 percent of Satyam staff in Australia are either Australians or permanent residents, he said.
When I first spotted the headline in the RSS feed, I thought it said "Satan opens Sydney office, hunts staff" ... which adds a whole lot of "interesting" to the mental picture.