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21 | Dell India: Gaining Ground
Bigger topline, new products, and aggressive marketing did the trick

While Dell is well entrenched in large enterprises (it is a favorite in call centers) with a market share of 30%, its problem area traditionally has been the SMB and consumer segments. This is more to do with its direct business model which works well with large customers. Dell focused on expanding to Home and SMB segments, and forayed into verticals like government and education.

The big event for Dell last year was setting up a manufacturing plant near Chennai, at an investment of Rs 140 crore, to be operational later this year. It will manufacture 4 lakh desktops per year. This was a logical sequence to its already large offshore services operations. Dell, with facilities in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mohali and Gurgaon, has one of the biggest captive support centers in India.

*Majority stake in Oracle | i-flex Solutions: More Global Reach
Broadened its portfolio, as its flagship, Flexcube, penetrated deeper globally

Even as Flexcube, i-flexs flagship product, won newer clients in Europe and the Middle East, the company broadened its portfolio by acquiring Mantas, a leader in anti money laundering and compliance software.

Oracle, which acquired a majority stake in the company, also created a new financial services global business unit led primarily by Flexcube. i-flex chairman, Rajesh Hukku, leads the unit which combines its vertical applications with its services in IT, as well as its BPO subsidiary, Equinox, to offer solutions to the financial services industry globally. To complement products, IT services and BPO expertise, i-flex acquired the Singapore consulting practice of Capco. And, i-flex started a subsidiary in Greece.

22 | Samsung India: Revamping Rush
Re-orchestrating its branding and focus is expected to revive growth next fiscal

The companys inability to ramp up its growth rate pulled it down and out of the Top 20 list. However, its bid at re-orientation toward the fiscal-end raised hopes of some growth revival in the next fiscal. Samsung re-christened its IT business as Samsung Digital Imaging Solutions as it decided to converge its focus on the LCD and printer business, which was accompanied by an expansion of offerings in these two product lines, and of its sales and distribution teams. The company has also decided to approach the corporate market segment with a focused approach to tap opportunities therein, through the formation of a dedicated B2B team.

23 | APC-MGE India: Powering UPS
Already the frontrunner in power management, the Schneider acquisition made APC-MGE even stronger

Schneider Electric acquired APC in Feb 07 and combined it with MGE UPS Systems, to make APC-MGE. Former APC country GM, Pankaj Sharma, was appointed president, APC-MGE with overall responsibility of South Asia. The combine proved successful not only in single- and the three-phase UPS systems, but also in integrated solutions for IT and data center applications (InfraStruXure). While revenues from InfraStruXure went up by 50%, even the more traditional three-phase and single-phase UPS systems and their ancillaries business registered 33% and 14% growth respectively. Although a premier player in the power management solution space, APC ventured into mobile accessories with a host of products ranging from power ready notebook cases to biometric password managers.

24 | SAP India: Fits All
In client diversification SAP was hard to beat, even as it reigned supreme in enterprise apps

As more Indian enterprises embraced diverse applications, the fierce competition between SAP and Oracle got intensified. Overall, Oracles wider software portfolio gave it some head start, but on the pure apps front SAP nosed ahead. This was no surprise, since it added almost 600 new customers across diverse verticals, including win backs like MRF Tyres (from Oracle), Havells (from Baan), JK Tyres, and Godrej Industries. Both large (LIC, NTPC, Kingfisher Airlines) as well as emerging enterprises (Provogue, Rupa, Sa Re Ga Ma) adopted SAP. The icing on the cake came from the smaller enterprises adopting SAP B1 launched during the year (260 clients). The two tier distribution structure in partnership with IBM and eSys definitely helped.

25 | Sun Microsystems India: A Strategic Balance
While Sun continued to focus on its traditionally strong areas, it also scouted for newer avenues of growth

That Suns India business is direct by reporting to the US HQ was the biggest endorsement of its performance. It has maintained a balance of consolidating on traditional strengths and focusing on developing new expertise. Therefore, Sun remained strong on servers and x64s amongst telcos and banks (mega deals with Reliance Comm, Oriental Insurance, and PNB) and also added 45,000 new developers. At the same time, there was a concerted focus on sectors like retail, healthcare as well as software like IDM (deployed at HDFC Standard Life) and SOA (Royal Sundaram). Even storage got renewed traction, especially erstwhile StorageTek products, at ONGC, L&T among others.

26 | L&T Infotech: A Bn-dollar Dream
Huge expansion plans, with a Rs 1,000 crore investment, to realize the dream

In the run-up to its IPO in 2008, the IT subsidiary of the L&T group announced its dream of becoming a $1 bn company by end of 2010. It unleashed an array of expansion plans with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore to achieve that dream. The investment, spread across the next 3-4 years will go largely to infrastructure building and expanding the engineering services business. Part of that thrust on engineering services was the decision to acquire California-based semiconductor product design firm, GDA. GDA has 350 employees between US and India design centers and over 100 customers in US, Japan and India.

Accused of running an illegal telephone exchange from its Powai office, the company did not let that dampen its growth.

27 | Capgemini: In Just One Year
The European services firm more than made up for its late entry to India

If there is one services company that completely transformed its India presence in just one year, it was Capgemini. Though the build-up had started the previous year, two transactions last fiscal made India its second largest base with close to 20% of its global headcount. One, the high profile $1.25 bn acquisition of offshore services firm Kanbay, which not only boosted its India presence significantly, but gave it two valuable customerHSBC and Morgan Stanley. The other was the trend-setting majority stake in Unilevers 600 people offshore F&A shared services center in Bangalore. Indias strategic importance was reiterated by the appointment of Salil Parekh, one of its most successful global managers, as the Executive Chairman of Capgemini India.

28 | LG India: Beyond Consumer
The foray into SMB territory helped LG sustain its volumes in the desktop business

The companys IT division made a strategic decision to venture beyond its traditional domain, the consumer segment and get into the SMB market to tap the lucrative market opportunity therein. The foray helped the company sustain its volumes in the desktop business as the consumer segment started showing a major shift from desktops to notebooks. Overall, LCD monitors and notebooks drove the companys growth. While LCD monitor sales grew almost four-fold, the notebook business also witnessed similar growth during the fiscal. The company inked a tie-up with Ingram Micro for distribution of its notebooks. Overall, monitors contributed 55% to revenues, followed by desktops and notebooks at 30% each, and optical drives at 15%.

*Majority stake in TCS | CMC: A Heady Mix
Changing the revenue-mix to offer more value added services seems to have worked well

The focus on value added services and the international business brought home better margins, with CMC doubling its operating profit. The direction outlined was clearmoving into high-end value added services and solutions space. The company has been focusing on changing the revenue mix to offer more value added services. CMCs joint go-to-market strategies with TCS helped the company gain leverage in the international market. The resultcontribution of the international business to total revenues increased from 28% to 35%, driven by the USA and UK markets, wherein the company won new engagements in the embedded systems space. CMC continued its transformation exercise from an equipment integrator to service provider.

29 | Aricent: A New Focus
Hoping to make it big as a focused telecom outsourcing player under a new brand

Aricent, known earlier as Flextronics (and before that as Hughes Software) made big news when top private equity firm, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, bought it for a transaction value of $900 mn. This remains to date Indias biggest PE investment. Michael Marks, a top KKR executive and present chairman of Aricent is believed to have crafted the deal.

Unlike the other major telecom player which also repositioned itself last year, Tech Mahindra, Aricent did not diversify but reorganized itself to focus more sharply in telecom. It addressed the entire value chain: telecom infrastructure manufacturers, device manufacturers and service providers. In fact, a part of that drive was to sell off its BPO business. Aricent is positioned as an integrated services and solutions players with specialized OSS products in the telecom space.

30 | Polaris Software Labs: Moving Beyond Citi
A rewarding growth strategy, and increased non-citi revenues brought it back on line

After a year of sluggish growth, it became important to grow the non-Citi business by more than 50%. Polaris formulated its growth strategy around three focus areasa sub-vertical thrust within BFSI, an IP-led strategy, and targeting large banks globally. It identified a few areas within banking to drive growth, and aggressively pushed its Intellect suite of products among large banks. The measure of success of this strategy was a good 25% growth in revenue, a whopping 374% growth in net profits, and penetrating into eleven of the top twenty-five banks of the world. But, the big achievement from future growth perspective was taking the non-Citi revenue to 60% from just about 40% a year back.

31 | Perot Systems: Localized American
The companys India growth was highlighted by the addition of infrastructure delivery centers in Bangalore

One of the most localized American services firms operating out of India, Perot Systems began the year on a high note after a global board meeting in India. The BPO operations were expanded to Coimbatore. The companys Global consulting, and global applications development and maintenance arms also merged into one entity called Perot Systems Consulting and Applications Solutions under Padma Ravichander. In application solutions, Perot India strengthened presence in travel and transportation verticals, apart from expanding presence in enterprise solutions.

The company plans to expand operations to Pune and Cochin. Emerging verticals like construction, retail, and banking services industry will continue to see investment from Perot India this year.

32 | Tata Technologies: A Global Dream
The Tata Technologies and INCAT union spelled success for the company

What else would you call a $45 mn entity acquiring a $130 mn one of Tata Technologies and INCAT, one of the worlds largest PLM service providers, was successfully consummated. Tata Tech benefited from INCATs global presence (with blue-chip clients); added PLM expertise to its traditional E&D domain and, at one stroke, reduced Tata Motors dependence to around 10%. INCAT, on the other hand, could tap into Tata Techs vast resource pool (on the delivery side); and also enter into the lucrative Indian automotive and engineering market. Awards for outstanding business development in India from vendors like IBM and Dassault were further testimony to INCATs success here in a relatively short time.

33 | Siemens Information Systems: Global Re-structuring
Consolidating its entire IT strength into one powerhouse helped SISL tap into the global market

In January 2007, Siemens announced merging its five IT and software houses including Siemens Information Systems (SISL) into one new group, Siemens IT Solutions and Service, thereby consolidating its entire IT strength into a single powerhouse with 43,000 employees and sales of about $5 mn. What this global development meant for SISL is the opportunity to leverage the global footprint more efficiently, providing better reach into the international market, access to the global portfolio, and helping tap into global customers.

As part of its expansion plan, SISL opened up its 40,000 sq ft Center of Excellence (CoE) for managed services in Kolkata.

34 | Computer Associates India: Winning Streak
Revival of the old aggression is clear with the multi million dollar HDFC project

CA has been trying hard for the last 10 years of its existence in India to create a market for IT infrastructure management and get a good portion of its pie. The aggression which was associated with CA during earlier years, is back. The results of hard efforts have started to trickle in with the winning of multi million-dollar contract with HDFC Bank to deploy enterprise IT management solution. Apart from this, CAs global strategy was to further strengthen Indias R&D center in Hyderabad and target only very large enterprises in India, which was reflected in CA CEO John Swainsons recent media interaction. Some of the customers apart from HDFC bank include State Bank of India and some wins in Bangladesh.

35 | Syntel India: The Three Aces
Service diversification, increasing offshore, and right clients with right models scripted Syntels success

Syntels success as a global IT service provider during FY 07 could be measured on three parameters: maturity and diversification of its service offerings, increasing the offshore proportion to enhance profitability, and balancing a judicious mix of clients with the right revenue models. The contribution from high-value BPO services delivered nearly tripled this year, while TeamSourcing, Syntels IT consulting arm, too maintained a steady revenue inflow.

While this ensured a healthy topline, bottomline was boosted by the offshore-onsite ratio of 73:27 from a lopsided 20:80. Having delivery centers in Mumbai, Pune, and Chennai, and aggressively increasing workforce paid off. Another plus was Syntels client concentration: 95% of its revenues came from more than one-year-old clients.

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