DCI is equity partner in Sanmar outfit

Chennai: The city-based Sanmar group has decided to offload part of its equity holding in its Rs 5-crore software outfit, Indchem Software Technologies (IST), to the US-based Decision Consultants (DCI). The $120-million turnover DCI has more than 1,100 employees and offers application outsourcing, application development and value-added staffing solutions to corporates and governmental bodies in North America.

The final price and the percentage of stake to be given to DCI are being negotiated. However, the majority stake will be with the Indian promoters, says IST chairman and Sanmar group vice-chairman N Kumar.

Kumar says IST, the one-year-old SEI CMM Level-4 company, has invested around $4 million in its operations. IST operates in vertical domains like banking, insurance, logistics and energy, and offers products and solutions in e-business and telecommunications. It has also executed 12 projects and promoted two wholly-owned subsidiaries in America and Singapore.

To scale up operations, one needs a presence in America. As we are comfortable with joint ventures, we decided to partner with DCI, says Kumar. Concurs IST president and COO S R Ramaswami: To survive in a competitive environment, second-tier software companies in the US that do not have an offshore presence and small Indian outfits have to join hands like the way we did.

As a prelude to the joint venture, both the companies have jointly set up DCIs Offshore Performance Centre of Excellence in Chennai. IST will operate the offshore centre while the management will rest with DCI. Technology has enabled us to offer offshore IT solutions, and we wanted an offshore centre to deliver solutions. The Chennai centre fits that bill, says DCI president and COO Ed Longo.

The new centre will initially house 50 software programmers and by the end of this year the partners hope to increase the number to 200, says DCI vice-president and general manager (application management services) Nozer Buchia.

About DCI a SEI CMM Level 3 unit, Buchia says that companys USP is an optimised delivery model - a blend of offshore and onsite work - with a client-centric approach. We guarantee our clients cost-reduction between 25 and 45 per cent and a decent return on investments.