ManpowerGroup announces acquisition of 100% equity stake in Web Development Company Limited (WDC) to provide IT Services and Professional Resourcing in India

KOLKATA, India, July 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN), the world leader in innovative workforce solutions, today announced that it has successfully completed its acquisition of the remaining 26 percent stake in Kolkata-based Web Development Company Limited (WDC), a leading IT services and professional resourcing company offering consulting, development and application support services to several large clients in India and across the Asia Pacific region. In March 2011, ManpowerGroup acquired a 74 percent stake in WDC.

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With this acquisition, WDC becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of ManpowerGroup's Experis brand, the global leader in professional resourcing and project-based workforce solutions.

"Experis is adept at attracting the highly-skilled professionals that companies need to grow their business and enhance their competitiveness, and this acquisition further strengthens its unmatched capability to do this throughout the region," said Darryl Green, ManpowerGroup President,  Asia Pacific and Middle East. "Our expert recruiters recruit experts with the right blend of IT skills and experience to create enhanced partnerships and achieve accelerated results." 

Employers in the region continue to be challenged in their search for qualified IT talent. ManpowerGroup's recent 2012 Talent Shortage Survey revealed that IT roles are the jobs Indian employers have most difficulty filling, and in fifth place across the region as a whole.

"Our selective acquisition of WDC has enhanced and strengthened the position of Experis in response to the demands and needs of clients," said Sanjay Pandit, Managing Director of ManpowerGroup India. "Employers continue to face frustration in their efforts to source highly-skilled professionals in the IT vertical, but Experis has the expertise and experience to give them the edge in the pursuit of talent."

"Since becoming associated with ManpowerGroup, WDC has been able to leverage ManpowerGroup's local expertise, global footprint and experience spanning over 60 years to further expand our capabilities and client base and deliver better, faster results," said Rahul Sharma and Harsh Hada, Executive Directors and Promoters of WDC.

About EXPERIS

Experis is the global leader in professional resourcing and project-based workforce solutions. Experis accelerates organizations' growth by intensely attracting, assessing and placing specialized expertise in IT, Finance & Accounting, Engineering and Healthcare to precisely deliver in-demand talent for mission-critical positions, enhancing the competitiveness of the organizations and individuals it serves. www.Experis.com

About ManpowerGroup

ManpowerGroup® (NYSE: MAN), the world leader in innovative workforce solutions, creates and delivers high-impact solutions that enable our clients to achieve their business goals and enhance their competitiveness. With over 60 years of experience, our $19 billion company creates unique time to value through a comprehensive suite of innovative solutions that help clients win in the Human Age. These solutions cover an entire range of talent-driven needs from recruitment and assessment, training and development, and career management, to outsourcing and workforce consulting. ManpowerGroup maintains the world's largest and industry-leading network of nearly 3,900 offices in over 80 countries and territories, generating a dynamic mix of an unmatched global footprint with valuable insight and local expertise to meet the needs of its 400,000 clients per year, across all industry sectors, small and medium-sized enterprises, local, multinational and global companies. By connecting our deep understanding of human potential to the ambitions of clients, ManpowerGroup helps the organizations and individuals we serve achieve more than they imagined — because their success leads to our success. And by creating these powerful connections, we create power that drives organizations forward, accelerates personal success and builds more sustainable communities. We help power the world of work. The ManpowerGroup suite of solutions is offered through ManpowerGroup™ Solutions, Manpower®, Experis™ and Right Management®. Learn more about how ManpowerGroup can help you win in the Human Age at www.manpowergroup.com.

Enter the Human Age at: www.manpowergroup.com/humanage.

About ManpowerGroup India

Established in 1999, ManpowerGroup Services India Pvt. Ltd. is a subsidiary of ManpowerGroup. With operations in 17 offices across 13 cities, ManpowerGroup India is one of the largest permanent recruitment and staffing firms in India. ManpowerGroup provides the complete range of HR services and solutions to clients, including permanent recruitment; temporary and contract staffing; managed services and outsourcing; employee assessment services; and training. Its unique proposition lies in the knowledge and expertise of caring for candidates through assessment, career guidance and training; and creating higher value for clients through unmatched delivery capability, flexibility of solutions and access to global best practices in people management. As part of its 'candidate care and development' culture, ManpowerGroup provides free access to online training to all candidates and staff through the Training and Development Centre. ManpowerGroup India is building a strong reputation as an innovator and thought leader in the Indian HR industry.  Each quarter, ManpowerGroup India publishes the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey that forecasts employers' hiring intentions for the next quarter, which has become the most authoritative survey of the Indian labour market. ManpowerGroup, as a socially responsible organization, has committed USD 1 Million towards building and operating vocational training centres for the purpose of rehabilitating victims of the tsunami in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu. More information on ManpowerGroup India is available at www.manpower.co.in

About WDC

Founded in 1998, WDC has grown rapidly over the years to become an IT services and staffing company offering consulting, development, application support and staffing services. The company works closely with leading bluechip companies to augment, manage and develop custom solutions for their technology needs.

WDC embraces a delivery model that provides clients with onsite business and technology consulting services for scoping, planning, project management and quality assurance of software projects with core programming and development work offshoring through our own or the customer's delivery centers here in India. The company's experienced development team of over 1,800 highly-skilled IT professionals work with their clients onsite or offsite.

The team's development skill sets range from Microsoft Technologies, J2EE, SAP ERP Solutions, IBM technology stack solutions, CRM systems, content management, databases, application servers and rich media, with qualified professional experience across industry verticals such as manufacturing, retailing, government, telecom, property, infrastructure, finance & banking, medical & healthcare.

The company's quality certifications include ISO 9001:2008 which require the company to have a continuous focus on the effective application of quality, including processes for continual improvement and the assurance of conformity to customer and regulatory requirements. The company is now in the process of achieving CMMI level 3 certification. Operating from Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Singapore, the company is well recognized for its excellence in execution throughout the value chain of consulting, project management, recruitment and staffing. More information on WDC is available at www.wdc.in.

SOURCE Manpower Inc.