CSS eyes European market

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Cybernet- SlashSupport (CSS), a company engaged in offshore Technology Operations Management (TOM), is eyeing the European market.

“Our revenue concentration in North America and in dollar currencies is still higher than what we would like. And also for the fact the European market is becoming more accessible and ready for significant outsourcing is the principal driver, we are targeting European and non-dollar revenues to get to 25 per cent in about two-three years,” Shiva Ramani, CEO, CSS, told CyberMedia News.

He said that having established a 100 per cent referenceable customer base in the advanced tech support space (over the last seven-eight years), CSS moved up the value chain, into the next level of tech support, by foraying into the Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) space about two years ago.

“During this 24 month period, we have established a strong presence in the IMS space in the US market. We have marquee customers such as Virgin America, BlackBoard Inc and Nortel Networks, among others, as our clients in the IMS-Tech Support space. Currently, about 10 per cent of our revenues come from the IMS space,” Ramani said.

“The first step in our European expansion is our strategic partnership with Bergler ICT; the 25-year-old Breda, Netherlands headquartered IT Solutions company. They have special expertise in .NET, Java/J2EE, Oracle and Delphi with leading Government agencies, banks, telecom providers and insurance companies in Europe as their customers,” he said.

“Netherlands is a $1.5billion outsourcing market and hence the potential to tap companies there is huge. We see immediate opportunities to provide IMS and tech support services to these customers of Bergler and to establish a strong footprint for our offerings,” Ramani informed.

Through this partnership with Bergler ICT, CSS will initially be offering IMS to Bergler’s customers in Netherlands and Benelux. “We have already signed a big bank as our first IMS customer in the Netherlands market,” he said.

As part of the partnership, CSS would be hiring about 200-300 infrastructure management and tech support professionals at its offshore facilities in Chennai.

“In addition to looking at Bergler’s customers, we will also be jointly targeting leading banks and insurance companies in Netherlands and Benelux with our IMS offering. With our expansion into Europe, we expect to also bill in Euros for our customers there,” Ramani said.

“Over the next 6-12months, we will target the German market with our tech support and infrastructure management service offerings. Our plan is to go the strategic partnership route for the German expansion. We will look to partner with regional players in the German market, who have established a strong presence in the local market and have a marquee customer base. We already have a sales and marketing presence in the UK. In the future, we will also be looking at strategic partnerships in the UK market,” he said.

Out of Europe, the firm already has Alcatel-Lucent as an exclusive global customer in the advanced tech support space. Alcatel-Lucent had also set up a tech support simulation lab at CSS' facility in Chennai in 2004.

“Currently, Europe contributes less than five per cent of our overall revenues. We will be investing about a million euros initially as part of our overall European expansion. With our European expansion, we believe that we will be a leading global player in the IMS space,” Ramani added.

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