CBSI enters into a strategic alliance with Netgateway

CHENNAI: CBSI India, the Chennai-based IT services provider, has been appointed strategic partner for the US-based e-commerce portal, Netgateway. While CBSI will provide e-commerce consultancy services (design, coding, testing and maintenance support), Netgateway will provide e-commerce application server solutions to e-business industries in business-to-business and business-to-consumer areas. "E-commerce is a major focus area for us, and we are planning to take up off-shore and consulting work in this area in a bigger way," said CBSI managing director and president V.V.

Sundaram. 

The company plans to add 600 people to its existing 1,400 employees as part of its expansion plans. "On an average, we have been investing close to Rs 12 to 18 crore on an annual basis, for the past three years in order to finance all our operations and our expansion," said Mr Sundaram. The existing facility (of 1,20,000 square feet) at its development center at MEPZ (Madras Export Processing Zone) will be extended by another 25,000 square feet of lab space. The company is also expanding the offshore dedicated development center for the Japanese electronic major NEC, which is into middleware design and development using objects technology. CBSI has been chosen as a strategic partner by SHOPKO, retail chain stores, with a view to enhance its IT strategies and procedures. CBSI is currently enhancing SHOPKO's logistic replenishment system, which is designed to reduce store inventories and costs. 

CBSI also has plans to market its solutions in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, Australia and Japan. Also on the cards is a banking solutions framework that the company plans on developing for Internet banking. It is currently negotiating with India-based banks for introducing Internet banking services. CBSI is especially targeting medium-sized banks, which need distributed data processing capability as well as connectivity with centralized systems using Internet as the backbone. CBSI also achieved SEI-CMM Level 5 (Capability Maturity Model, set by Software Engineering Institute) for its software engineering and management processes.