Satyam Computer Services is beefing up its sales workforce in the important European and

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North American markets, in a bid to retain its client base in these vital geographies. The company has begun the process of identifying and recruiting potential sales executives to convince its customers to stay with it as the process of its integration with Tech Mahindra gathers pace.

“We have seen a healthy interest in our initial efforts to hire additional sales resources from the market. We are complementing this further with a group of highly charged, motivated and committed ‘Star’ performers from our pre-sales, solutions and programme management functions, through an intensive, internal selection process,” A S Murty, Satyam chief executive officer, said in a letter addressed to the company’s associates.

A person close to the development said that the recruitment drive had become mandatory as Satyam had lost a big chunk of its sales representatives in the aftermath of the disclosure of the massive accounting fraud committed by the company founder Ramalinga Raju.

“The strength of the sales team in certain geographies had come down by almost 30 per cent. This was putting additional burden on the remaining associates.

“Also, this was affecting the relationship with clients. There was a danger of losing customers to competitors due to this. Hence, it was obligatory to fill up the vacant positions,” the person says. The sales force number should go up by about 20 per cent, the person added.

The move comes as a surprise given that it almost coincides with comments made by Tech Mahindra CEO Vineet Nayyar about Satyam having 10,000 employees too many. The comments had given rise to widespread speculations about massive layoffs being in the offing at the beleaguered Hyderabad-based company.

Satyam has seen an exodus of company stalwarts over the last four months or so, since the scandal first came to light. Some of the top notch executives who have quit over the last few weeks include Hetzel Folden, head of the strategic sales group, Virender Agarwal, business head of India, West Asia and the Asia Pacific region.

Naresh Jhangiani, human resource head of business process outsourcing and Deepak Nangia, head of the Australian region.