Merative opens global capability and innovation centres across three Indian cities

Merative, formerly IBM Watson Health, that became a standalone data analytics company under US-based private equity Francisco Partners in July last year, on Thursday, announced its India global capability and innovation centres (GCICs) across three Indian cities – Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

These India centres will enable the company to achieve its purpose of combining trusted technology and deep industry expertise to serve more than 4,500 clients in healthcare and government social services around the world, Gerry McCarthy, CEO of Merative told TechCircle.

The Michigan-based business aims to offer its health data services to clients ranging from providers, health plans and employers to life sciences firms, imaging companies and government entities.

McCarthy said that the company is also planning to ramp up hiring for its India GCICs, especially in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning, data, clinical research workflows, verification, and validation for medical device software. In addition, the company will be looking to hire talent in industry agnostic technologies like cloud technologies, DevOps, cloud infrastructure support, and enterprise applications.

Globally, Merative has about 3,000 full-time employees serving more than 4,500 clients. Without mentioning any specific headcount for the India centres, McCarthy said that Merative’s strategic investment in India as a centre of excellence marks a significant milestone for the company and the company will continue to hire both freshers and skilled tech professionals.

“The India GCICs will enable us to achieve our vision to become even more agile and responsive to our clients’ needs with a product development process focused on value,” said Troy Bailey, Chief Technology Officer at Merative, adding that the GCIC will be a global centre of excellence in data architecture/technologies and machine learning, delivering value to our clients by keeping people at the centre of health and social care.

Bailey further said that Merative India GCIC will serve as a global centre of excellence for the company, and focus on product engineering, innovation, support, and services for six key products, including Health Insights, MarketScan, Clinical Development, Zelta, a clinical data management and acquisition platform, Cúram a health and social care solution and Micromedex, drug safety offerings – all previously offered by Watson Health.

The Indian global captive centre (GCC) market is growing rapidly and can potentially grow up to $110 billion in value by 2030 from the current $45 billion, according to the ‘Future of GCCs in India - a vision 2030’ report published by professional services company EY in June 2023. The report added that India will have 2,400 GCCs by 2030, which could further increase to 2,550, positioning the country as the global hub for technology and services.

The number of new GCC set-up every year is expected to grow from 70 to 115, Arindam Sen, partner and GCC sector lead - technology, media and entertainment, and telecommunications, EY India said in the report.

Another report by staffing firm NLB services, published earlier this month noted that nearly 78% GCCs and innovation hubs in India will expand their talent pool and of that 8% are likely to double their workforce by the end of this year. The report further noted that over 1,500 GCCs in the country will create approximately 3.64 lakh new jobs by the end of 2023, a 38% rise from 2022.