Satyam sees plenty of opportunity in China

Bangalore, Aug 4: Early entrants into China, Satyam Computer Services plans to ramp up its operations in the neighbouring country, where IT is emerging in a big way, by increasing its staff strength to several thousands from a mere 300 now.

Talking to newspersons here today, Satyam Computer Services Chairman B Ramalinga Raju said engineering services offered plenty of expansion opportunity in China due to its manufacturing base and the company would serve its existing multinational clients, besides the Chinese companies from its operations in that country.

Declining to come out with any forcast, he said Satyam would have a significant presence in China and was even looking to an inorganic growth by acquiring companies with added synergy.

Mr Raju said ''Satyam will leverage its opportunity in China, taking advantage of the talent pool there.'' Offshoring need not neccessarily be India centric and could be across various centres, including developing countries, by tapping low cost high quality talent.

A frontrunner in offering engineering services, Satyam derived ten per cent of its total revenue from the sector, which according to the latest NASSCOM survey had a 40 billion Dollar potential by 2020, employing an additional 250,000 people.

The Company had revised its revenue forecast for the current fiscal to be in the range of Rs 6,190 crore and Rs 6,290 crore following a robust first quarter growth.

Mr Raju said the company had a strength of 5000 out of a total of 30,000 employees in the engineering services and it was growing at over 36 per cent annually.

Mr Raju said besides the local market access, Chinese operations could also help offer near shore centre services for Asia Pacific region, especially Japan. He said the company was also looking into other geographies as 98 per cent of its revenue came from exports. ''We have to think at global level and tap talent wherever available'' he added.

Referring to operations in India, he said Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore would continue to be the major centres for growth with Bangalore having a leading edge in technology, especially the telecom sector.

Referring to engineering services he said it was growing at the same rate as the BPO servies at 35-40 per cent. It's total share in offshore pie was about 12 to 15 per cent and this would further increase in the coming years in view of the high growth. Last year engineering services, contributed 2.2 Billion bollars in software exports.

UNI

UNI