Global petroleum major British Petroleum (BP) plans to set up a new centre for its global business services (GBS) operations in Pune, Maharashtra.

The new centre will employ around 2,000 people and will support digital innovation for BP globally. The centre is expected to begin operations by January 2021 and will provide business processing and advanced analytics capabilities in support of BP businesses worldwide.

British Petroleum's new centre in India will assume operational ownership of third-party business processes and seek to further extend its work with analytics and data science capabilities to pursue better business outcomes. The company says India is an important market with growing digital talent pool,  which will allow BP to leverage the talent and lead development, application of cutting-edge digital solutions.

Camille Drummond, senior vice-president, GBS, BP said: “Our new centre in India will enable us to put digital at the heart of BP’s businesses. Accessing India’s great talent pool and leveraging an agile mindset, we expect to advance the customer experience, adding further value to BP.

Welcoming this development, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel said, “I welcome BP’s move to establish a major new global business services centre in Pune. The new centre once operational will create opportunities for the growing local digital talent pool in India and will employ 2,000 people to support its global businesses.”

With this announcement, Maharashtra has bagged several new investments, which includes 12 MoUs worth Rs 16,030 crore with investors from 12 countries and agreements with the United States, China, South Korea, Singapore and Indian investors.