Excellent news analysis website

When J.K.Nair took over as Executive Vice President and COO of Chennai-based California Software Company Ltd (Calsoft) in 2003, the company’s strength lay in leveraging business solutions and engineering services outsourcing.

Nair took an initiative in refining the offerings in the former category by focusing on commodity solutions for the trading, procurement and risk management of the marine fuel oil business of traders. Starting from a nil contribution to revenue, comodity solutions today contribute about $3-4 million to the business solutions business, which accounts for 70 percent of the $40 million turnover of California Software.

Nair, who was earlier with Ramco systems as Director CRM, contributed to the setting up and building of the CRM business line in that company. When he left Ramco, the CRM line was contributing 8.3 million to the company’s business.

Talking about the latest plans of calsoft, Nair told that the company was heading towards a synergic acquisition with talks under way with two companies in the business solutions area. Since outsourcing to North America contributors 60 percent of California Software’s revenue with 25 percent coming from rope, the acquisitions are likely to be in these geographics to further strengthern the company’s position in this domain.

The acquisition is likely to be finalised in another two months. Nair said that the company had been posting 20 percent growth for the last two years and they hoped to grow at a higher pace that year.

Wipro Technologies is expanding its presence in Tamil Nadu, particularly Chennai, owing to infrastructure investment in the IT corridor, good talent availability and a receptive state government.

Chennai has overtaken Hydrabad in manpower recuirement for Wipro Technologies, with Chennai having a headcount of 8500 compared to Hydrabad’s 8000. With the management freezing plans for further expansion in Bangalore due to high costs, infrastructure problems, and state bureauctacy, Chennai is definitely tipped to emerge as an important base for the company in the next for years.

Wipro Technologies is expanding its develoment facility in an additional 82 acres of SEZ land at Sholinganallur, near Chennai, located behind its present facility, housed on 22 acres of land. Expected to have a seating capacity, about 4000 seats would be occupied in phase I. Construction has started and occupation is expected to beging by September.

D.Chandrasekar, Vice President and location head, Chennai said that phase II would be developed in another two years, another 8000 people would be added with the rest absorbed in pahse III. The facility is expected to attract and initial investment of about Rs.100 crore.

Chandrasekar said that they would be also starting construction work on their new development facility coming up on 95 acres of land in the SEZ area at Mahindra city, by September. He also said it would house 1000 people by March next year. It is expected to involve and investment of Rs.40 crore initially.

Construction of another development centre on seven acres of land at Coimbatore is palnned to start by October. A 2800 seater with an investment of Rs.70 crore, it is expected to start operations by April next year.

Wipro is focusing on hiring engineering graduates and B.Sc graduates from state colleges for its expanding centres, with the latter being enrolled for the four year MS course at BITS Pilani under the Wipro Academy of Software Excellence programme. This year Wipro Technologies hired 1500 Arts and Science compared to 700 last year.

This year 2000 engineering graduates from 40 engineering colleges are expected to join Wipro’s Chennai centres compared to 1000 last year.

Dell’s first made in India computer rolled out of the conveyor at its newly established assembly line at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. The Sriperumbudur facility, in which Dell intends to invest $30 million over the next five years, now has a single assembly line, with a capacity to roll out four lakh units per annum on a single shift basis.

The first locally manufactured desktop was handed over to Dell’s largest customer in India, Infosys Technologies. While the company can operate upto three shifts, it also has enough land at its disposal to set up additional lines to achieve its production ramp up schedule to roll out 2.5 million units per annum over the next few years.

Mr.Rajan Anadan, Vice president and GM, Dell India, told that they had commenced production, which was third in entire Asia-Pacific region and Japan. He added that the sriperumbudur facility was also their third plant to go on stream that year, with two others in Brazil and Poland.

He said that the facility was very strategic for their operations in India and it would help in reducing the lead time for delivery by 40 percent – 50 percent. He also said that it would also help in reducing costs and they would pass on the benefits to the customers.

The first desktop of Dell India was handed over to Group Captain Deepak Sinha, vice president-CCD and Mr.R.N.Koushik, AVP-CCD, Infosys, in the presence of Mr.Kip Thompson, vice president, worldwide facilities and Mr.K.Y.Yong, GM, Manufacturing Operations, both from Dell.

Mr.thompson, who was earlier instrumental in launching Dell products in the country, said that they had put up the facility in just a short eight months and it was great day for manufacturing and technology in India. Mr.Yong said that the new facility had come up over 1.1 lakh sq ft of built up area. He said that they had been allocated 50 acres and they had plenty of space set up addition assembly lines and 100 acres have been allocated for suppliers and they intend to establish an eco-system comprising many of their 90 vendors present globally.

Dell has an overall market share of 6 percent in India. However, it has established around 30 percent share among large corporates. It has recently entered the banking and financial services segment.