UK Private Equity Firm Establishes Quant-Driven GCC in India

Project overview

A UK Private equity company originally set up a Quant development team for their Mid-office in Bangalore with The Scalers. The quality of candidates and speed of recruitment led them to expand to a full GCC, facilitating their “look east” strategy.

13 Quant developer roles filled

80-day average to close Quant roles

Transferred the Global Capability Centre into the Partner’s Indian entity

Challenge

Initially, the CTO of a UK Private Equity company approached The Scalers to set up a team of specialist Quant developers for their middle office that a global consulting company had been unable to fill in the previous 18 months. The success of that team led the board of directors to approach The Scalers as part of their “look east” strategy and establish a substantial Global Capability Centre (GCC) to match competitors who were already established in India.

Solution

The Scalers initiated a targeted recruitment process to meet the initial mandate for quant developers and SREs for the middle office. Just over a month after signing the MSA, three stakeholders flew out to interview the first candidates, three of whom were onboarded into the initial team. Within six months, all the middle office positions had been filled, including eight Quant Developers, two team leads, two Senior Software Developers, 2 Workday developers, and a Senior Site Reliability Engineer.

Once the green light had been given to expand into a GCC, The Scalers’ COO and Director of Partner Success conducted strategic workshops in London with department heads, resulting in the identification of 20-25 roles suitable for immediate offshoring in departments including HR, Risk, and Treasury. These roles were filled over the course of the following year, starting with senior positions that formed the foundation for each department.

Once all the initial roles had been filled, discussions started on transferring legal ownership from The Scalers to the Private Equity firm. The Scalers started hiring for the required support roles on the ground and prepared for the transfer of assets to the partner. The whole process was completed without any disruption to the day-to-day running of the GCC and ensured minimal attrition.

Results

The UK Private Equity company now has full ownership of a GCC in Bangalore, which has helped enable their “look east” strategy. This new hub has helped them secure specialist quant profiles that were difficult to find at home and provides substantial cost optimisations across multiple departments. By establishing their new global hub, they have levelled the playing field against some competitors and have a strategic advantage over others.