One of the area’s newest businesses already plans to expand its footprint in South Jacksonville.
At a ribbon-cutting Friday for its new customer service center at 6680 Southpoint Parkway, executives with Hinduja Global Solutions announced the company plans to add more jobs after already committing to hire 400 employees over the next few years.
HGS specializes in global process management services for national and international clients.
HGS Chief Executive Officer Partha DeSarkar said the Jacksonville office has hired about 250 employees since the company announced its expansion here in September.
“From what I know of the business that’s already coming through, we should be full pretty soon,” DeSarkar said. “This is the start of a relationship with Jacksonville.”
Tim Schuh, the company’s North American president, said HGS hired its first Jacksonville employee Dec. 1 and since that time the company secured two new long-term contracts.
“Based on that overwhelming response, I’m excited to tell you today that we’ve already made additional investments in this facility to expand it beyond its original size,” Schuh said.
HGS originally envisioned the Jacksonville location hiring 350 to 400 employees.
“We expect that number to be 150 to 200 more than that,” Schuh said.
HGS signed a five-year lease in November for the 38,468-square-foot office space owned by a local subsidiary of Greenfield Partners LLC.
Schuh said Auld & White Constructors LLC began work in November.
“It’s been a crazy 30 to 60 days around here,” he said.
Schuh said Jacksonville landed on its radar about 18 months ago when the company was looking to expand in the Southeast.
“It’s been a long journey, but it led us to a place that is key to our strategic future at HGS,” he said.
Schuh praised Jacksonville’s employment pool, saying the company already has fielded about 400 qualified applicants since it began hiring at the end of 2018.
According to HGS, the office will serve multiple clients “in a variety of industries as well as functioning as a center of excellence for customer experience in emergency roadside services.”
Mayor Lenny Curry said in a statement that HGS’ “entry into Florida brings hundreds of jobs to our city and bolsters our ongoing efforts to lead and drive economic development growth.”
City Council President Aaron Bowman said hearing about HGS’ plans to expand “is music to our ears.”
Bowman, also a vice president at the JAXUSA Partnership, the business development arm of JAX Chamber, said the city tries to make it easy for companies to choose Jacksonville over other competing cities.
“When a company is looking for a place to relocate, we really try to mitigate their risks,” he said.
The city did not provide financial incentives to bring HGS to Jacksonville.
Bowman said he was not surprised to hear executives say they already are looking at ways to expand its Jacksonville operations.
“The labor force is here and you can see how quickly they found a full staff,” he said.
HGS is a subsidiary of Bangalore, India-based Hinduja Group, a global conglomerate of companies with more than 150,000 employees across 100 countries.
The HGS operation has 75 offices in seven countries. Its U.S. footprint spans eight locations with about 3,500 employees.
For the fiscal year ended March 31, HGH reported revenue of more than $597 million.
