SPAN Infotech is now an EDB company

BANGALORE, INDIA: SPAN Infotech, an outsourced software services company, has joined hands with EDB Business Partner ASA - a leading IT services provider in Europe. EDB has acquired 50.1 percent stake in SPAN by investing $3.77 million.

EDB, which has been serving businesses in Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark) for over 40 years, delivers solutions that cover the entire range of business-critical IT services from application services and industry-specific solutions to IT operating services and network solutions.

Announcing EDB's acquisition of SPAN Infotech at a press conference today, G.L. Pradeep, Co-founder and managing director, SPAN, said, "We are excited with the prospect of entering new business and technology consulting areas with EDB and strategically adding to EDB's global delivery capability."

"While SPAN continues to focus on its existing business, EDB has helped us open new business and technology consulting areas and has provided access to new markets," he added. "In India, we are growing in strength by setting up a new office in Bangalore. With the scale of operations projected at about 2000 resources by 2010, we have commenced the project of having our own campus in Mysore."

"The Mysore campus will deliver products for both EDB and other customers. EDB will be our key customer. Through this centre, we will continue to focus on offering its services to the insurance and finance sectors, invest in R&D and co-develop the products," Pradeep said.

Tom Scharning, senior vice-president, Business Development, EDB Business Partner ASA, said: "India has always been an important market for us and hence we acquired SPAN. A key component of EDB's growth is leveraging offshore and sourcing from India. Our majority stake in SPAN helps us in building a long-term global sourcing strategy for EDB." "We will further invest $5 to 6 million in developing a new campus in Mysore."

"EDB has the right services mix to offer to large customers in the Nordic region. EDB, which has seen a robust presence offering services to banks and insurance firms, public sector, telecom, retail & services, manufacturing, oil & gas sectors, is seeing a growth of 10 percent plus year on year," he added.

"We will leverage SPAN's capabilities in SAP, mainframe operations, banking and application products to offer our customers. We have a good opportunity for growth in the Norwegian market despite talks on recession," said Tom.

SPAN has been offering specialized services to ISVs and is strong in the insurance and financial services sector along with serving system integrators (SIs) and start-ups. The company, which, which closed at Rs.50 crore during 2007-08, is aiming at 60 percent growth year-on-year and is targeting a revenue of Rs. 106 crore by 2010.

The company also has a global footprint with offices in the US and Sweden. It is amongst the first 100 listed SEI CMM Level 4 assessed and ISO 9001:2000 certified companies. "We optimize and align our client's business strategy with their IT initiatives for the entire software lifecycle," Pradeep said. Further, we will be achieving the CMM Level 5i by March 2009. In all, we are looking at an overall growth through this acquisition," Pradeep said.

Why did EDB choose to tie up with an Indian company? Tom says, "There are two reasons - one lack of right resources and the salaries for IT employees in Norway is very high. This acquisition helps us in exchange of talent as well as technology. SPAN's services will be embedded into our system."