CGI Group Inc. has opened a new information technology customer service center in San Antonio with plans to hire 100 new employees within a few months.
The Fairfax, Va.-based technology giant has leased 9,000 square feet in the North Point Atrium. It has already hired 23 employees, said Nazzic Turner, senior vice president of CGI's southern region.
"As CGI continues to grow, we'll grow this center as well," Turner said.
The center's workers will take calls from customers using CGI products or those who contract for outsourcing services. The company provides back-office functions such as accounting, human resources and financial management systems.
CGI is one of the largest independent information technology and business process services companies. It had revenue of $3.6 billion last year and employs 25,000 people in 100 offices in 16 countries.
Turner declined to comment on which customers would be serviced out of the San Antonio office. But CGI's clients, listed on its Web page, include Bank of America, AT&T, American Express, J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, and the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and State.
CGI looked at locations in 10 states before deciding on a San Antonio site, Turner said. It chose San Antonio because of the city's skilled labor force, demographics, location, low cost of doing business, and cooperative business community and government staff, she said.
"We are very committed to doing business in Texas," Turner said.
CGI has three other offices in Texas — in Dallas, Austin and Houston — employing more than 400 people. The San Antonio location fits well with the company's strategy, Turner said.
CGI also has offices in Canada, Europe and India. But its federal government contracts are helping fuel the demand for more domestic offices. With most government contracts, there is more sensitivity to preventing data from going outside the United States, Turner said.
In the final stages, San Antonio competed for the CGI office against cities in Alabama and Utah, said John Osborne, senior vice president of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation.
"It's a great company to have come to San Antonio," Osborne said. "It's a global company. It's exciting for us and our IT industry."
CGI joins San Antonio's expanding call center industry, which in recent years has added Washington Mutual's new regional operations center, Affiliated Computer Services' 600-person call center, Wachovia Bank's 300-job expansion at its 24-hour banking center, 2Wire Inc.'s 500-employee tech support center and Harris Connect's 300-employee call center.
Overall, San Antonio's call center industry employs an estimated 50,000 people, according to the Professional Teleservice Management Association, a San Antonio-based trade group.
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