Agilent to invest $30 mn to set up campus

New Delhi, July 15: The five billion dollar US-based Agilent Technologies said it will invest 30 million dollars over the next couple of years and will set up a ten acre Agilent Campus in Manesar to bolster its sales from the 85 million dollars last year to 150 million dollars this fiscal.

''The Gurgaon and the Bangalore R&D units will be expanded and we will increase the headcount in Gurgaon to 300 employees from the present 150,'' said Agilent Technologies Director- HR Jayantika Dave.

The company intends to shift a part of its operations from the Gurgaon office to the new campus to be constructed in Manesar.

Ms Dave said that while electronic business will be the key driver to its sales figures, life sciences business was the hottest sector for business in India.

'' The electronic business is one and half times bigger than our life sciences division but expect it to grow as we spend around 100 million dollars on R&D alone over the next 2-3 years,'' said Ms Dave.

The country's strength lies in R&D sector and it is important to leverage it, she said.

Ms Dave added that a shift in geographic distributuion of customers was taking place with Agilent Asia-Pacific contributing to 45 per cent of Agilents global revenues.

''Indian arm of Agilent contributes to the company's global revenues through growth, innovation and by reducing cost from the bottom line,'' Ms Dave said.

Ms Dave went on to add that the company was not adverse to the idea of alliances or aquisition of existing companies in India.

'' We want to provide the best services in terms of technology to our customers and if needed we are open to alliances, re-engineering of products, inward licensing and chartering into new areas through R&D,'' she said.

The company's customers range from industry, academia and government with whom the company is engaged in contracts related to aerospace and defence equipment.

The silicon valley-based company is a spin off entity from Hewlett-Packard and broke records on November 18, 1999 as the largest initial public offering (IPO) in Silicon Valley history.

The 2.1 billion dollar raised from that IPO was a sharp contrast to the 538 dollar in working capital that founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard began with in 1938.

UNI