Persistent to hike staff to 1,600

PUNE: Cashing on the increasing trend in the software industry to outsource the complete product development lifecycle services, Pune-based Persistent Systems is gearing up to tap the $ 10 billion market with aggressive plans for growth. Having doubled its strength in a span of just 18 months, the company is all set to cross the 1,600-employee mark by the end of this year. 40 employees joined the Nagpur facility recently and the US subsidiary has another 20 employees.

Persistent is a software product development and services company providing data infrastructure solutions to software companies. While IPO is still an early option and there is no real urgency to go public, its MD and CEO, Anand Deshpande agrees that eventually it would examine this route. The company prefers to adopt a conservative approach even as it is looking at acquisitions. "There are a number of things involved here. The right people, the right culture and at the end of the day, what you can do for yourself," Deshpande explained.

Persistent is currently operating from six different centers in the city and has plans to acquire an additional 200,000 sq ft at Hinjewadi and another 120,000 sq feet at the International Convention Center.

Competing with the likes of TCS and internal shops of software majors, Deshpande believes that since the company is focused on products, it is attractive to the companies to which it caters. The company has moved on from providing software components to building a product, supporting and maintaining it.

"We build new versions depending on the market feedback and provide IP (Intellectual Property) to our customers as well," said Deshpande and added that it has positioned itself as the 'Flextronics of the software industry'.

Persistent now boasts of clients like IBM, Microsoft, HP, Oracle, Agilent, Bridgestone, Google and Intel. With over 90 percent business coming from the likes of these clients, according to Deshpande there is enough opportunity to grow. Even a 60 percent growth rate is a pretty conservative estimate. The company reported revenues worth Rs 84 crore in 2003-04 and is targeting Rs 135 crore this year.

Even as the US remains a major market, Persistent is actively looking at the European market for solutions in the area of RFID. A branch office has already in operation in Scotland and a POC (Proof of Concept) is in process for a Korean client. The other focus areas include identity management, RFID and life sciences.



A small development facility will be coming up in Bangalore by the end of the year. Deshpande added that in the next three to four years, the goal is to become "leaders in the outsourced product development business". Right now the focus is on efficiencies and providing IP for new products."

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