Bangalore: Dutch major Philips has incubated two offshoring projects on novelty patent research and product process development from Netherlands at its software centre in Bangalore, Philips Software Centre chief executive officer (CEO) Bob Hoekstra said today (Mar 25, 2004).

"We have incubated two projects - novelty patent research and product development - with about 20 to 25 people in each team," Hoekstra told reporters on the sidelines of the Indo-European IT-SME Forum.

"There is an interest in Philips at Netherlands to outsource BPO and back office operations, but do not have a model to follow. We are experimenting the model with this incubation," he said.

Philips Software Centre in Bangalore employs over 1,150 professionals who work on latest consumer electronics products and other Philips projects.

Earlier, delivering his keynote address at the forum, Hoekstra said Philips was looking at financial back office outsourcing and human resources and sales planning from India, but did not specify a time frame for these projects.