Not the sidekick anymore

How is your acquisition with IS Integration progressing?

The integration process, which is in the early stages, is going smoothly. There was no overlap anyway as Applabs was strong in USA and India while IS prowess was in UK.

Would Pune be your next center after Hyderabad? How soon?



We have envisioned a headcount scale-up of around 1000 people for the next year. After we attain that level we will ramp up through a new center for future expansions. Besides Pune, we are also considering a tier-two city as our talent recruitments are not rigid. We can employee all types of people including B.Com grads. Pune has adequate talent advantages but a city not on the IT map so far would be a good option too.

Does your testing portfolio cover the whole spectrum like architecture, automation, unit testing, etc.? Which area in your estimation, holds future action?

Yes, we cover everything from definition to execution. Earlier we used to cover requirements gathering to testing, but with the IS acquisition, we have taken deployment and post-deployment functions in our fold as well. On the unit testing side, we handle a few projects but the pie is small owing to the development thrust needed. Today, around 50 per cent of our basket is occupied by automation with over 600 trained automation professionals. We are robust in certification and security testing space too. In future, growth will be fuelled by specialized services and performance testing. Performance testing not only needs expertise but a robust infrastructure to facilitate pressure testing that is possible only with a rampant number of servers across the world. This is where we will stand apart. We are considering new areas like application, game testing for mobiles besides pharma and retail as future verticals.

Would the contours of the industry change as you go forward?

Testing market hitherto was seen as a specialised service and did not gain as much limelight as development market did. It was just a support service area for IT industry as a whole. But recent studies and a research by Gartner point towards a trend wherein testing has come in the main league.

You have set an ambitious revenue mark along with public listing milestone in the next few years. Does this allude to the exit of VC funds and more acquisition targets?

We have set the aim of being in the top 3 club in the industry besides a $250 million revenue mark in the near future. AS of now, the association with Sequoia Capital (VC) has been a great validation. The industry is fragmented now and we will need to plug holes if any to materialize our ambitions. Acquisitions wouldn’t be ruled out but we will have to pick and choose carefully. The associated fund requirement for the same would call for options like public listings and VC avenues may not fit at that stage.

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