Hyderabad, Oct. 15 (PTI): iGate Global Solutions today said it would double its headcount in Hyderabad to 750 over the next 18-24 months.

According to iGate CEO Phaneesh Murthy, the integrated technology company’s 65000-sq ft development centre at Banjara Hills in Hyderabad currently has 375 IT professionals on its rolls.

Apart from the City of Nizams, iGate has offshore operations in Bangalore, Chennai and Noida.

While the second phase expansion at the company’s 14-acre campus in Bangalore has been completed, the work on the Rs 25-crore third phase development at Whitefield will commence shortly, Murthy said, adding that the 1000-seat facility is expected to be operational by the first quarter of 2007.

In the second wave, wherein companies which already had first time offshoring experience, are now looking at business process outsourcing from a more strategic point of view, Murthy said. “A number of our key wins in the last 2-3 quarters have been the result of this second offshorisation wave,” he added.

“With our pioneering ITOPs (integrated technology and operation) model, we believe that we will stand to gain from this second wave,” Murthy claimed.

Commenting on the outlook for the industry, he said, the market continues to look interesting and robust. F1000/Global 2000 companies, whose annual total IT budgets are in the $250-300 billion range, currently offshore about 6-7 per cent of their budget.

“With India becoming a preferred offshoring destination and the industry having matured, I believe that there will be heightened interest from US companies to do work out of India and I see the offshore budgets going up to 15-20 per cent in the coming years,” he added.

iGate has a global employee strength of over 4000 people, 70 per cent of whom work from its four offshore facilities in India and its revenues in the second quarter of the current fiscal stands at Rs 155.77 crore and net profit is Rs 5.62 crore.