PUNE: Nearly a fortnight after taking charge at Zensar Technologies, Ganesh
Natarajan is now in the process of taking stock of the situation and is working
towards `rebuilding the management team’ at Zensar.
Zensar Technologies — an RPG group company engaged in software solution, is
the world’s first enterprise-wide SEI CMM Level 5 Company with lines of
business covering areas of retail, telecom and financial services.
"The goal is to ramp it up, make it a truly world class
organization," he said. Natarajan’s sudden move to shift to Zensar had
raised many an eyebrow in corporate circles. On his decision to quite Aptech,
Natarajan maintained that he quite liked the idea of challenges. "My
capabilities lie in building teams and expanding markets," he said,
speaking to media persons for the first time after taking charge at Zensar.
Natarajan seemed unaffected by the slowdown in the US economy and believed
that their company’s strong offshore model based on a direct relationship with
the clients would ensure `business as usual’. "It is the body shoppers
that are getting wiped out. With a model like ours, it should not be very
difficult to ensure growth," he maintained.
Although Zensar would be focusing on Japan and Europe in a big way, Natarajan
said that this in no way would affect their US operations. Denying any possible
impact of the US slowdown on the company, he revealed plans of opening another
three offices in addition to the existing five offices here. "It will be
tougher though getting business because of the Indian flag," he remarked. V
V Chellappa, who has 25 years of professional experience with Zensar has been
appointed CEO of the North American operations. The US client list of Zensar
includes Sprint, Fujitsu and Cisco among major corporations.
The corporate strategy of Zensar is built around three lines of technology
— Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. Embedded software and mobile computing are recent
additions in the areas of expertise. Zensar has also built domain expertise in
three areas including retail, telecom and financial services. In the area of
embedded software, the company has taken on an assignment with a South African
company.
Zensar will be focusing on Japan in a big way. Over the last 5 years, the
company completed several projects in Japan and has over 30 Japanese
professionals in both technical and non-technical areas. The goal is to expand
their network in Japan and increase the number of Japanese speaking engineers.
While Natarajan did not rule out acquisitions as a way to grow, he maintained
that they did not have any acquisition strategy in place yet. "We will be
entering into the financial sector in the next three to four months," chief
operating officer, Sunil Kunte, said. On the proposed merger between Zensar ICIM,
Natarajan said that both the boards had filed the applications and the name
Fujitsu would cease to exist after the merger. Once the merger between Zensar
ICIM takes place, RPG and ICL Plc will hold 30 per cent each in the company.
Electra Partners who invested in Zensar in 1997 will hold 22 per cent and the
public the remaining 18 per cent.
Another four offshore development centers will be in place during the next
financial year. This would include centers at Mumbai, Delhi and a fourth center
at Pune that would hold 900 software professionals. The center will be
operational in a span of 18 months. Zensar currently has six full- fledged off
shore development centers.