Mumbai, the financial capital of India, is not only home to Bombay Stock Exchange, which is the oldest stock exchange in Asia, but also is the center of excellence for its outsourcing capabilities in financial services, Application Development and Management (ADM) and health-care services.

Indias largest city Mumbai generates 5 percent of the countrys total GDP. The emerging services areas in Mumbai are engineering services, media and entertainment outsourcing, animation and game development.

The citys GDP is $41.3 billion, and its per capita income is $1,010, which is almost three times the national average.

The city exhibits an established position in the global outsourcing space owing to various factors like infrastructure, a large talent pool of around 60,000 in BPO sector and developed policies. It had traditionally owed its prosperity largely to its textile mills and its seaport till the 1980s, which were replaced by industries employing more skilled labor such as engineering, health care and IT.

Indias IT-services industry was born in Mumbai in 1967 with the creation of TCS. The first software export zone SEEPZ was set up here way back in 1973, the old avatar of the modern day IT park. There was a time when more than 80 percent of the countrys software exports happened out of SEEPZ.

There are around 30 registered units of electronic and hardware firms and around 74 registered units of electronics and software firms in SEEPZ at present. SEEPZ is relatively a safer area in Mumbai because there isnt too much of new business or growth that is happening currently. Other parts of Mumbai are witnessing bigger growth and, hence, are more riskier.

Mumbai is the preferred choice of outsourcing buyers for financial services BPO sector, contract research, which is in the growing mode and legal services which has a major center in the city. It is easy to find quality resources in Mumbai but costlier than other cities. ADM is the core strength of this city and the new model, which is growing here is marketing and financial analytics. Some niche skills which are prominent here are engineering services and research and development.

Top services providers like TCS, IBM, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Mahindra Satyam, Accenture, CSC, ACS, Caliber Point, Firstsource, Convergys, Genpact, WNS Global Services, Minacs, Cognizant and EDS are present here.

Estimated exports from Mumbai in software services (including IT and IT-enabled services) in 2008 were $3.0 billion to 3.6 billion. However, if Mumbai continues to grow at 63 percent (as last year), it is expected to touch $ 4.1 billion.

Being home to many financial institutions, the city faced a considerable impact of recession. Tholons Analyst Saugata Sen Gupta says, The captive centers in Mumbai suffered badly due to economic slowdown. The job market became sluggish. A lot of engineers faced salary deductions, and layoffs. The market has not yet recovered. We see some hopes in the end of first quarter of 2010.