i-flex Solutions: Going Strong
Even as it was acquired by Oracle, i-flex posted growth for all its solutions

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Oracle acquired 41% stake in i-flex from Citigroup Venture Capital for $593 mn in cash. Though the idea was to position Oracle solutions in the global banking industry, that was and will be an uphill road. BASEL II compliance was leveraged as a platform to further proliferate its solutions and products. IBS ranked Flexcube as the world's largest selling core banking solution for the fourth consecutive year. Chile and Taiwan were identified as key markets for both Flexcube and Reveleus. Though Infosys and TCS-FNS combo dominated the domestic market, Flexcube found takers such as UTI Bank, Union Bank and Syndicate Bank among others.

• Islamic banking features of Flexcube was well-received in countries such as Libya 
• Positioned by Gartner in the leaders quadrant for BASEL II risk management application software 

l Start-up Year: 1992  l Products & Services: Consulting, software services, software products, BPO  l Employees: 6315  l Branches: 20  l Employee: 6,315  l Address: i-Flex center, 399 Subhash Road, Vile Parle (E), Mumbai 400057  l Tel: 56685000  l Fax: 28235190  l Website: www.iflexsolutions.com 

SAP India: Mid-Market Run
Localized, templated solutions helped the company stay ahead of competition 

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India business continued the previous year's momentum, as the company added 250 new customers. Around 140 of the wins came in for its MySAP solution, another 45 for Business One, and the rest in the large enterprise segment. SAP offers 26 industry solutions, with partners like Wipro, Siemens, Coconut Software and Patni among others. The company had notable wins in telecom, banking (SBI is the latest), consumer product companies (Dabur), retail, government (Coal Miner's Provident Fund), and utilities. The construction vertical, where it had little presence earlier, opened up. During the year, it localized a lot of its solutions – the human capital management for the public sector and banking verticals, for example.

• Launched BusinessOne for small businesses
• Government and construction verticals started picking up; banking and retail did well 

l Start-up Year: 1996  l Products & Services: Packaged software & services  l Employees: 3,200  l Branches: 7  l Address: 7/4, Thaper Niketan, Brunton Road, Bangalore 560 025  l Tel: 41365555  l Fax: 2509 5888  l Website: www.sap.com/india

Tech Mahindra: Breakaway Year
Mahindra BT changes its name, to move more quickly beyond the one-client association

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The re-christening of MBT to Tech Mahindra reflected a new business orientation-though British Telecom remained its largest customer, it did not want to appear associated with only one client. Especially as it was looking at addressing the entire telecom ecosystem. The BT name may also have been an issue in North America. The best news was that though the BT engagement increased by 15% in revenues, the dependence came down to 65%. The big boost to growth in 2005-06 came from the $54 mn acquisition of Axes Technologies that gave it a foothold among telecom equipment vendors. The most notable domestic success was the managed services bureau and Interconnect billing solution for BSNL North.

• Filed for an IPO, offering 12.7 mn shares at a price band of Rs 315-365
• Set up new facilities at Noida and Kolkata 

l Start-up Year: 1988  l Products & Services: Telecom software services  l Employees: 9,536  l Branches: 20  l Address: Sharda Cenre, Off Karve Rd, Pune 411004 l Tel: 56018100  l Fax: 5424466  l Website: www.techmahindra.com

Sun Microsystems: Gem In The Sun?
Robust performance across segments gets the India business a status upgrade

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Though it happened after March '06, Sun's India business becoming a Geographically Established Market (GEM) with direct reporting to USA was testimony to its solid performance, especially in 2005-06. Servers/workstations still contributed 60% of revenues, but services and storage (following the StorageTek acquisition) did well too. All major telcos increased engagements. But addition of marquee names like Genpact, GAIL, ONGC, ICICI as well as tier-two banks among the 200 new customers was the bigger story. Sahara and NIC were two big wins in storage. Though software was only 5% of revenues, identity management solutions had three big wins including Genpact and L&T. Sun enhanced its product distribution, signing up eSys as the second distributor after Ingram.

• Belinex project on open source platform developed by Sun's Indian R&D team
• Tie-up with PNB's Institute of IT to set up a Java and Solaris Centre of Excellence in Lucknow

l Start-up Year: 1992  l Products & Services: Hardware, software products & services  l Employees: 1,408  l Branches: 5  l Address: 7th Floor, Prestige Obelisk, Kasturbha Road, Bangalore 560001  l Tel: 56930600  l Website: www.in.sun.com

American Power Conversion: Power Run
A focus on segments, and the ecosystem, helped APC ramp up

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APC's focus on consultative selling, deft segmentation of the market and investment in its ecosystem drove both numbers and mindshare. Take the new SUVT (Smart-UPS VT), which has a smaller footprint. Since consumption per square foot of a building has shot up, a smaller footprint and higher density was a requirement. APC had to help the channel articulate things like this.

At the highest level, the biggest transition APC has been making is to go beyond components into the entire application, like the data center. For its partners, the opportunity pool now has expanded.

Government, IT and ITeS were strong segments. For consumers UPS-PC attach rates in India have shot up to 80%, from three years ago when just 20% of the PCs would have a UPS attached. APC was well positioned to gain from this. 

• New Datacenter University to support sales and marketing
• Launched UPS with smaller footprint, higher availability, and efficiency

l Start-up Year: 1999  l Products & Services: UPS, power, racks, cabling  l Employees: 84  l Address: 27, Lavelle Road, Bangalore 560001  l Tel: 22213798  l Fax: 22213816 l Website: www.apc.com/in

DELL India: The Direct Religion
This was the year Dell really made a mark in India, beyond its traditional EoU/EPZ niche

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Dell's been around in India, but 2005-06 was when it really got significant. And not just in the captive MNC exporter “global accounts”. Sales doubled, pushed by a bigger team, aggressive promotions, and better support (24x7, onsite, and remote), a big gap earlier. Execs carrying Dell laptops became a common sight. Desktop and server growth was strong. CEO Kevin Rollin and chairman Michael Dell visited, and announced investment plans: 20,000 headcount in three years; and manufacturing operations. (And in June '06, Dell's fourth support center went live in Gurgaon). Michael Dell said plans were to maintain 40% growth in India, its fourth largest APAC market, and this would a key to a global top line of $80 bn by 2008.

• Visits by CEO Kevin Rollin and Chairman Michael Dell; plans of 20,000 heads in three years
• Doubled sales force and sales; stuck to direct model. Improved support

l Start-up Year: September 2000  l Products & Services:  Desktops, notebooks, servers, monitors, and storage  l Address: Divyashree Greens, Ground Floor, No 12/1, Challaghatta Village, Vathur, Hobli, Bangalore South, Bangalore 560071  l Tel: 25068026

CMC: Leveraging SI Expertise
SI skills not only won it contracts in India and overseas, it allowed TCS to leverage them

As part of the combine with TCS, CMC lent its SI expertise, honed and developed in the domestic market over years, to the former for its global forays. India's number 1 software exporter could now flaunt the SI skills of CMC to win mega deals overseas involving end-to-end solutions. On its own, CMC's domestic juggernaut rolled on; its BOLT system for the BSE completed a decade, while its flagship biometric application, FACTS, was showcased in the National Skills Registry project for Nasscom. Overseas, its CALM application went live in Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistic's Mid-Atlantic Terminal (MAT) in Baltimore, even as it bagged a second order from Penang Port for an overhaul of its IT systems.

• Appointed as Indian subcontinent representative of MIRO Technologies for aerospace and defense solutions
• Northern region of SI business unit became third regional center to get CMM Level 5 certification

l Start-up Year: 1976  l Products & Services: system integration, network integration, third party maintenance, IT training, software development & embedded systems l Employees: 3,597  l Branches: 10  l Address: PTI Building, 5th Floor, 4 Sansad Marg, New Delhi 110001  l Tel: 23736151  l Fax: 23736159  l Website: www.cmcltd.com 

Polaris Software Lab: Banking on Intellect?
Its flagship suite is taking off, but Polaris is some way off from strong recognition as a BFSI specialist

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This services company has strong banking expertise and links, including the 2003 merger with Citigroup's Orbitech. Yet it does not have the strong name association with banking that, for instance, i-flex (a Citi company that Oracle bought last year) does. Its Intellect Suite isn't as well known, especially in India, though it has had global wins (such as Lloyds TSB Bank, UK, for international cash management). The OND '05 quarter also saw its first loss, pulling down annual performance.

Polaris tied up with enterprise risk management leader Algorithmics, to be able to offer a range of risk management solutions especially in Europe. It also pitched on SoA with its Intellect Suite (with the USP of smoothly adding new channels like mobile banking, simply as another service).

• Revenues, profit dip; some recovery in AMJ '06 (Intellect business doubled). Good geo distribution (US 40%, Europe 28%)
• Half of revenues from Citi Group. But gradual wins elsewhere and in India (eg Canara Bank cards rollout on Intellect)

l Start-up Year: 1993 l Products & Services: BFSI, intellect suite and retail solutions l Employees: 6,126 l Address: Polaris House, 244, Anna Salai, Chennai–600 006 l Tel: 044-28524154 l Fax: 044-28523280

Perot Systems TSI: Betting on India
Perot came out of HCLT's shadow, and boosted its India presence with nearly $10 mn investment

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FY 2005-06 was all about rebuilding the Perot entity in India, after breaking away from the HCL association. While the company concentrated on deepening its India involvement, it added a third tower at the Noida facility with 800 seats.

North America accounted for nearly 70% of the overall business. The remaining 30% was divided between Europe (20%) and Asia. In the domestic market, the focus has been primarily on consulting with domain focus on healthcare, travel and transportation, and the financial sector. Travel and tourism would be a key focus area for Perot in both the domestic as well as the global industry. The company also plans to make its foray into newer domains such as engineering, chemical, retail and services in the current fiscal.

• Invested $8-10 mn to expand facility in Noida
• India headcount touched 6,000, which is one-third of Perot's global strength of 18,000
• Revenue from US jumped to 60%, up from 44% in FY 2004-05

l Start-up Year: 1996  l Products & Services: Managed service and application solutions l Employees: 6000 l Address: Plot No 3, Sector 125, Noida 201301  l Tel: 2432750  l Fax: 2430545 l Website: www.perotsystems.com

Flextronics Software Systems: In Top Gear
The company ensured high growth, as it breezed though a period of rampant changes

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Whatever might have been the achievements of Flextronics in 2005-06, it would forever be tinged by overwhelming tragedy following the demise of CEO Arun Kumar in San Diego. An iconic figure, Kumar was largely responsible for what Flextronics (and its earlier Hughes avatar) had achieved till date. Otherwise, 2005-06 had several key highlights for FSS: it undertook a major exercise of integrating 7 software entities into its fold; the integration helped it emerge as a stronger entity with presence in India, South Africa, Ukraine, US, Germany and China, and with a much larger portfolio in the communication software domain. Also FSS de-listed itself from the Indian bourses and subsequently, Flextronics International sold its majority stake (85%) in FSS to KKR, a US-based private equity firm.

• Set up its first Chinese software design and development center in Beijing    
• Launched mobile TV solution, HipTV for the consumer market 

l Start-up Year: 1991  l Products & Services: Telecom Software, GPRS, UMTS, SIGTRAN, network management  l Employees: 6043  l Address: Plot 31, Electronic City, Sector 18, Gurgaon  l Tel:  2346666  l Fax: 2455100  l Website: www.flextronicssoftware.com 

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