Monday, April 03, 2006

Honeywell in Hyderabad

Honeywell International, the Fortune 500 global major, is to set up its centre in Hyderabad. The company would have its own campus and carry out research and development apart from processing operations.

Honeywell is being allotted about 10 acres near Nanakramguda on the outskirts of Hyderabad for setting up its campus and would hire 3,000 professionals once the operations streamline. The company will start civil works from April 13th.

The Honeywell project was been pending on the question of the value of land that the company would have to fork out. The Andhra Pradesh government wanted to sell the land for about Rs 1 crore an acre, but the company sought a lower price. Honeywell finally seem to have convinced the state government that it is not hoarding up land, and indulging in real estate speculation, a charge that drove many IT companies out of Bangalore.

Convinced that the land being asked for campus, the government therefore felt that the American company it was entitled to cheaper land. Finally, after prolonged negotiations the government agreed to sell the land to Honeywell for over Rs 40 lakh an acre. Honeywell India, employs close to 5,500 professionals across its four locations in Pune, Bangalore, Chennai and Gurgaon.

It has its technology solutions lab in Bangalore, which provides product solutions and analytics, advanced R&D and IT solutions. Besides, the company has also set up a call centre in Gurgaon recently, to offer support services in automation and control solutions business customers in the US. While the Andhra Pradesh has several IT and ITeS companies providing back-office and design support, Honeywell will change the profile of the activity in the state with several of its global customers understanding the skills that are available in AP.

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