Zensar to add 200 this quarter

PUNE: The Enterprise Applications Group (EAG) of Pune-based Zensar Technologies has bagged multiple contracts, worth $ 10 million -$12 million in the Oracle eBusiness space.



The company is planning to take on 200 professionals this quarter, taking the strength of the division to over 600. The EAG Practice accounted for a revenue of $ nine million for the company last year.


Zensar deputy chairman and MD, Ganesh Natarajan said that this was a good year for the company which is now focused on three prime areas — offshore development, enterprise practice and Solution Blue print which provides for end to end automation of the software development skills. "Currently, offshore development centers currently account for 72 percent of the company’s business. But we are seeing high growth in all these areas," he said. The company has eight ODCs in Pune. Natarajan said that the Oracle eBusiness was witnessing the fastest growth.


Zensar COO, Sunil Kunte said that the company’s enterprise practice was different from the other players since it delivered turnkey solutions which encompass visioning, architecture planning, chart of accounts, restructuring and project management. The other players offer just the technology services, he said.


Zensar has bagged contracts from Sanmina- SCI Corporation, Videojet and Electronic Arts, helping them to upgrade their ERP systems from 10.7 version to the 11.5 I Business suite. This involves re-engineering the business process and data migration. Zensar is already doing some work for Logitech, Fluke, Trimble Navigation and Mashreq Bank, Global Payments, Beckman Coulter among others.


Unlike most of Indian headquartered companies, Zensar had made significant investment in setting up its Oracle ebusiness Practice in the US in 1998 positioning itself to provide end-to-end solutions. Kunte said that the company is currently among the top four Indian vendors in Oracle ERP.


VP and Head of the EAG Practice in Pune Mukul Agarwal pointed out that customers were demanding a two tier model whereby significant part of its applications and database support could be managed from offshore. "We have introduced the 80/20 methodology where 80 per cent of the ERP implementation and migration project can be executed offshore," he said.


He added that clients in the Far East were showing an interest for help in Chinese support in Oracle. Zensar has entered into a 50:50 joint venture with Hanzen Technologies for this purpose. The JV called Asia Logistic Technologies (ALT) includes customizing the user interface for the customer. Besides this, there is a growing market for quality consulting where companies are putting in processes for SEI-CMM Level 3 to Level 5, to gain credence for selling in the global market. Zensar has won contracts worth $300,000 from software product companies in China for quality consulting.


(CNS)