NEW DELHI: Over the last three years the company has emerged from being "also ran" to a formidable #14 software exporter from India. Today, the CK Birla Group company that also has strategic equity participation by GE Capitals has been able to transform its offshore service delivery through its robust delivery model that embraces digitized project management methodologies embedded within its Six Sigma and SEI CMM Level 5 practice. While the company is already offering IT services worldwide from its development centers in US, India and Australia, it has recently entered Japan and acquired 29 new customers and hopes to be amongst the India Top 10 soon.
In a freewheeling discussion with Shubhendu Parth of CyberMedia News, Birlasoft's CEO Kamal Mansharamani talked on varied issues- from the company's long-term strategies to offshoring and H1B visa regulation. Excerpts:

You have recently come back from the US, where George W Bush, who is considered to be a believer in free market economy, has just assumed office for the second term. Do you see this as a good omen for Indian outsourcing and offshoring?
I think two important things have happened. One, the anti-outsourcing rhetoric has died out post presidential election. Secondly, the job market in America has improved a lot. They have created lot many new jobs in the last quarter and the economy is looking up. Yes, the return of Bush is definitely a very good sign as he has always been supportive of the whole initiative. For him, it is market economy and market dynamics that are more important. Today, companies that were holding back their decisions and waiting for the things to settle down have now started getting into the act. There is a positive air around.

But what about the H1B visa issue? Isn't this turning out to become another big bottleneck?
I agree the H1B quota today is inadequate in terms of the real need and while there are enough lobby groups working in US to push for increase in the cap, I think this has in a way helped in a lot of work moving offshore. Technology has helped us make sure that we don't need many people onsite and with the H1B cap, companies are looking at moving more and more work offshore. Also, with the current engagement model becoming very mature, companies across the world are comfortable moving work offshore. You will see lot more movement in work coming offshore than the other way round.

But companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro and Satyam are also setting up facilities close to their customers and looking at doing high-end consultancy from there. Are there any similar plans for Birlasoft?
Infosys and others, where they are today, they need to compete with the big four and the model suits them at this point of time. Every company will need such capability at different stages of their evolution cycle and we will also come to that point, but right now there are a lot of other areas where we need to focus.

So where exactly is Birlasoft today in the evolution cycle?
We are presently #14 on the Nasscom's software exporters list. Our long-term vision is to get amongst the top 10 and that is something we are really working very hard on. We have been putting in a lot of effort in building capabilities and scales. We are also looking at getting into new verticals and building horizontal competencies around it and get them to the market. That's in near future. In the long term, we will be looking at other growth areas, including consulting.

Can you elaborate on the new verticals and the horizontals that you are looking at?
From the verticals perspective, we are into financial service and manufacturing where we are focusing in the retail area. Retail logistics is the new focus area for us. Healthcare is the other area where we would be focusing. On the horizontals, we are very strong in Peoplesoft practice and we have Oracle practice and we will soon be building SAP practice. This is in terms of the ERPs. We are very strong in QA and testing. We are also into data warehousing. Beyond that, we are very strong in IT governance (ITG), where we are one of the leaders in the world. This is a very niche area that is opening up and has really helped us get several new contracts.

Talking in the long-term perspective, where do you see Birlasoft vis-à-vis the top five India IT companies, particularly as the company has the strong CK Birla lineage?
TCS, Infosys, Wipro have done extremely well, but don't forget that they have been there for last 20-25 years and they have evolved. We have been here for 12 years. Yes, we could have done much more than what we have achieved over this period, but then till three and half year back we were focusing primarily on the onsite centric model. It is only during the last three and half years that we corrected our course and have built what Birlasoft is today, including offshore centric capabilities and the fact that we are a 2000+ employee company. Today, we have full commitment from the Birlas and you will start noticing the change soon.

There is a general perception that the company lacks aggressiveness. Do we see that changing too?
Yes, the world still perceives us as a very conservative company and I think that's more because we haven't talked about the good things that we have been doing or the growth at Birlasoft. Today, besides building new capabilities, there is a lot more thrust in terms of visibility in the company. We are focused on building an organization that is admired by everybody, including the employees and hence a lot of initiatives have been taken on the HR front to build an employee-centric company. We are also a very customer focused company when it comes to sales and delivery. Going forward, we have to continue with the momentum by scaling our operation, scaling our offerings and by entering new geographies.

Which are the new geographies are you looking at?
We already have global footprint. We are present in the US, UK, Australia, Singapore and the Middle East. But we are looking at setting up new offices and getting into more markets. Europe is one area where we are focusing very strongly and while we are already present in the UK, we are looking at getting a foothold in Germany and Benelux. We also want to open new offices in the US. But our biggest achievement has been our entry in Japan and we have already bagged our first customer in that country.

What about the short-term plan?
We have been growing at about 28 percent over the last two years and we hope to achieve over 30 percent growth in the coming year. We already have a $15 million investment earmarked for our short-term plan over 18 months. While we have recently set up our Noida center, we are looking at creating another facility in the next 8-9 months. In fact, over the next 18 months we are looking at setting up two facilities-one at Noida and the other outside NCR-and taking up the overall headcount to 3500.