ThoughtWorks looking to expand to second city

Bangalore, July 6 (UNI) ThoughtWorks Technologies is looking ahead to move to a second city in India, predominently in the Southern peninsula to expand its operations in the country.

ThoughtWorks Technbologies India Managing Director Matthew Simons told UNI that the Company was looking at Chennai and Hyderabad besides a few other cities for expansion. A decision would be taken shortly.

Operating in India for the last five years, ThoughtWorks has over 150 staff in the country and its Indian operations was the second largest Development Centre outside of the US. The US Dollar 87 million company with more than 700 people was considered one of the most influential amongst software applications development companies in the world, specialising in delivering critical custom software for those projects that were highly technically complex and strategically important.

''We thrive on tackling mission-critical technology projects under tight deadlines involving cutting-edge technology solutions'' Mr Simmons said.

In an industry which had an extended reputation for high attrition rates and overburdened employees, ThoughtWorks functioned differently both in its approach to the way technology solutions were developed and the manner in which it implemented its HR solutions.

Stating that the Company had not lost any employee over the last couple of months, Mr Simmons said that ThoughtWorks chose not to tread the beaten path of IT-Development and attracted high quality talent. Unlike traditional developers of IT products and services, ThoughtWorks used a different methodology to retain workforce besides enhancing productivity. The company encouraged people to work in pairs so that there would be a cross flow of ideas. Such pairing thought was hardly practiced across the industry. It also had a University programme under which the employees undergo a monthlong intensive training and induction programme. ''The office is truly flat with evereyone from the MD to the new bie rub shoulders on the same long stretch of table'' he added.

Focussing exclusively on application development and integration, ToughtWorks adopted an Agile approach, tools and proven system development. Its reputation for thought leadership in advanced technologies and software development processes was backed up by its clients' successes and recognition by leading industry analysts for being the best in the industry in delivering custom software for the most technically complex strategic projects.

Mr Simmons said ''we take up toughest assignments and our staff besides offshore development are also compulsorily sent for onshore work''. Toughtworks rotate its staff across the world and any given time the Indian developers would have chance to rub shoulders with their couterparts from other countries and improve their skill sets.

Similarly Indian developers were also sent on outside development projects. ''Our motto is attitude, aptitude and integrity'' he said adding that the Company did not believe in having a huge work force to take up mundane and least challenging development works.

He said ThoughtWorks's Distributed Agile capability takes offshore and distributed development to the next level of sophistication. ThoughtWorks' India developed the Distributed Agile methodology that applied the success of Agile methods to mission critical and complex business solutions using offshore and globally distributed teams.

This had resulted in clients having unprecedented project visibility and control, allowing them to make critical decisions based on the needs of the business, which drives better software and higher Return on investment.

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