VMware plans US$2 billion direct investment in India over the next 5 years
VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger announced the investment plans at press conference in New Delhi today. This investment will enable the company to expand to new offices in Bangalore and Pune as well as increased headcount and capital expenditure for both R&D and to support its growing sales operations in India.
“India is a key cornerstone of our overall global investment strategy, providing outstanding engineering talent for our global R&D operations that are helping to drive innovation across our entire product portfolio,” commented Pat Gelsinger, CEO, VMware. “VMware remains committed to providing innovative technologies that help drive our customers’ digital transformation.”
Gelsinger added: “I will be honored to meet with Prime Minister Modi later today. We are grateful for the current environment in India where VMware can continue to grow, invest, and create jobs and opportunities for India’s IT workers of today and tomorrow.”
Arun Parameswaran, Vice President & Managing Director, VMware India added that the company’s initiatives in the country also support Indian Government policies, such as Digital India.
“We intend for these efforts to not only help drive innovation for VMware’s customers globally, but to help drive innovation across India itself,” said Parameswaran. “India has a deep pool of talented, creative people that can help fuel our innovation now and in the future.”
Over the past 13 years, VMware’s operations across R&D, sales and marketing as well as business support services have expanded in India, with more than 5,000 employees today supporting its business locally and globally. VMware’s primary India sites include Bangalore, Pune and Chennai.
Women Return to Work Program, Project Taara Launch
In related news, VMware, in partnership with Women Who Code, India, has committed to training 15,000 women over the next two years in diverse technology areas, providing a platform for more women with previous experience in IT to upskill themselves in digital technologies. This new program called VMware VMinclusion Taara: Women Return to Work program, is expected to launch on December 1.
Several organizations like Bharti Airtel and Cognizant plan to support the program and are open to a consideration process for relevant IT openings within their organisations for women certified in VMware solutions as a result of Project Taara.
In India’s IT sector, nearly 50 percent of women move out of core engineering roles after eight years, with the biggest drop-off after the first five years as they often take a break to start families and do not return to the workforce[1]. Increasing women’s labour force participation is therefore essential for the growth of India’s IT industry, which is expected to drive digital transformation and add an estimated US$154 billion to the country’s GDP by 2021[2]. VMware, a founding partner with Women Who Code, started a new Bangalore chapter two years ago. This chapter now has 1,700 members, elevating women’s technical leadership via meetup events for networking, learning and communication. VMware also supports the Women Who Code India CONNECT conference, fostering the technical community and boosting technology education among women in India.
For the past four years VMware has also participated in and sponsored the Grace Hopper Conference India, which focuses on fostering women in technology. The company has many women involved in this conference as ambassadors, session chairs, committee members or reviewers and in a host of other activities designed to further women’s careers and professional learning in IT.
VMware and Sustainability in India
Both the VMware Bangalore site, which is currently under construction and a new VMware site in Pune, which is currently being scoped, will be developed to meet Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) Platinum certification.
VMware India has also certified its major sites with US Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) standards, with sites in Bangalore and Pune being either Platinum or Gold certified (or in the process of certification) and 80 percent of the company’s floor area in the country achieving LEED standards.
VMware also currently runs one of the largest fleets of electric carpool vehicles in Bangalore, with more than 500 employees using this service everyday, reducing vehicle emmisions in the city. In addition, more than 80 percent of the electricity used by its South Bangalore sites is generated from wind power.
