Hapag-Lloyd has launched a technology centre in Chennai, a port city in eastern India,  aimed to help develop software solutions for the maritime industry. 

The Hapag-Lloyd Technology Center (HLTC) will be housed in the World Trade Center Chennai and will be operated as part of a joint venture that Hapag-Lloyd established with the Indian technology company Solverminds in June this year.

 [Source: Hapag-Lloyd]

In the centre, a team of 180 IT professionals will develop innovative software solutions for the maritime industry.

Hapag-Lloyd noted that with their expertise, these new colleagues will strengthen Hapag-Lloyd’s IT capabilities.

As one of the world's leading providers of management solutions for the maritime industry, Solverminds has been working closely with Hapag-Lloyd since 2017 in the areas of IT operations support and software development.

"In the Hapag-Lloyd Technology Center, we will be bundling our strengths and competencies," said Donya-Florence Amer, CIO/CHRO at Hapag-Lloyd. "HLTC will thereby make an important contribution to our technological transformation. We are continuing to expand our global IT presence and are able to provide industry-leading software solutions."

The goal is to grow the new technology centre in the next few years.

"In the medium term, we plan to increase the number of talents in our HLTC to between 300 and 400 specialists — thereby also growing the talent base and attractiveness of the whole company going forward," Amer added.

Balamurugan Palanivelu, chief executive officer of HLTC, said as a port city, Chennai has always been an important business hub and, in recent years, it has become a major centre for software solutions.

"All these factors — port, business, software — offer us the perfect environment for our technology centre and for developing smart software solutions. We look forward to intensely interacting with Hapag-Lloyd’s global IT teams," he added.

Chennai will become the third Hapag-Lloyd IT Technology Center alongside Gdansk (Poland) and Hamburg (Germany).

Hapag-Lloyd noted that the opening of the Technology Center in Chennai marks an important step for the ocean carrier and shows that the company sees "great potential in India," also with a look at tapping the enormous market for highly qualified IT talent it provides.