MUMABAI, INDIA: Headstrong, a global consultancy and IT solutions firm, announced the inauguration of its new centre of excellence (CoE) in Hyderabad and unveiled plans to expand its reach in South India.

The CoE will focus on delivering high–end business and technology solutions for the global securities and capital markets industry. The focus would remain on offering specialized financial services supporting derivatives, equity and mortgage to its clients.

Headstrong has existing global development centres (GDC) in Noida & Bangalore and has now added another exciting location with a view to tap the high quality intellectual pool of Hyderabad.

Headstrong firmly believes in the business model of establishing presence in proximity to the clients to be able to serve them better. Headstrong is poised to move into a much larger GDC at Hyderabad by Q4 2008 as the existing accounts are experiencing substantial growth. 

Arjun Malhotra, chairman & CEO, Headstrong said, "This is a strategic move that will accrue substantial benefits to our global delivery model, as Hyderabad has emerged as the second largest hub, after Bangalore, for world-leading financial institutions to establish offshore headquarters and captive centers. As a financial services specialist organization we are looking for two things - creating business excellence with profitability and, creating a strong architecture of a professionally rich talent base." 

Harsh Singh Lohit, MD, Headstrong India, added, "Besides our mainstream capital markets domain work, we have identified KPO services to be our next breakthrough which is expected to come around in the next phase targeted at 2009. We would be keenly looking at management graduates, those with an engineering background, or people possessing prior financial domain expertise as potential employees, and then brushing up their skills in-house."