VMware today announced that it planned to invest US$2 billion in VMware-specific efforts in India between now and 2023 as part of the company’s overall global investment strategy.
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 increase 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.
In related news, VMware, in partnership with Women Who Code, India, has committed to train 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.
