In spite of reports of some companies shifting back their help desk operations out of India, the United States-based Concerto Software has firmed up plans to set up its global help desk in India with 70 people in February to provide high-end support to worldwide customers.

"We have zeroed in on two cities -- Bangalore and Hyderabad -- to set up our global help desk which will provide product and technical support to our global customers," Pramod Ratwani, vice president, Asia-Pacific and Middle East, Concerto Software Inc, said.

He said company president James D Foy is expected to visit India in February to announce the setting up of the centre which would involve a significant amount of investment.

At present, globally, the company has three help desks -- the US, the United Kingdom and Singapore -- and when set up, India would be the fourth one.

Even though the Indian centre would take up new assignments, there is expected to be some job-shifts from its Boston-based help desks to India resulting in 'job losses', he said.

"There would be some overlapping of jobs and to cut that we have to trim the workforce at Boston and shift some part to India," Ratwani said.

Companies would have to look at improving their own bottomlines first and whatever was required to improve the profitability, it would be done, he added.

Concerto, which makes software for call centres, itself has a small call centre operation in Mumbai with 30 people.

This centre, however, gives tier-I support to global companies by handling the basic queries.

The reason behind setting up a global help desk in India is that growth in future is expected to come from countries like India in Asia as US market was saturated, Ratwani said.

In another development, Concerto has shifted the business development responsibility for the Middle East region to India which was earlier handled out of London.

"We are shifting market responsibility of Middle East to India from London," Ratwani said.

India is very significant to Concerto's global plans being a good market for its products besides being a provider of cost-effective and quality talent, he added.

Concerto, a global customer interactions management company which has got over 50 customers in India and has raked in a revenue of six million dollar in 2002, is eyeing a growth of 40 per cent in 2003.