The Hindu : Business : State's own software companies make a mark in products arena

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 26, 2005

Business

Business

State's own software companies make a mark in products arena

Vipin V. Nair

Aviation, petroleum, telecom sectors targeted

KOCHI: Kerala may be a minnow among other South Indian States when it comes to software exports, but a handful of its own companies have begun to make a mark in the international arena with their software products.

Companies such as IBS Software, SunTec, NeST and Softex Digital are fast establishing their products in the cutthroat, high-risk global markets, competing with domestic biggies as well as multinational heavyweights.

What makes their achievement more significant is the fact that only a few made-in-India software products have made it big in international markets so far, though India is a leading destination for outsourcing software services.

"We are investing about Rs.150 crores in developing our flagship product, "iRes," says V. K. Mathews, chairman and chief executive of IBS Software Services.

A product for airline operators, the full-fledged version of iRes will be out in the first quarter of 2007 while a scaled-down version has already been launched.

IBS, which took four years and 150 people to develop iRes, is pinning much of its future growth on the product, which the company believes would be a revolutionary software tool for the changing the airline industry, still largely using legacy systems.

Along with iRes, IBS has also developed products such as SmartCargo, iLogistics, TopAir and iPort, for logistics and oil and gas sectors. These products have already made their way into companies such as Cathy Pacific, Emirates and Air Canada and Heathrow airport.

SunTec, specialising in transaction billing and pricing software, is another success story from the State.

An ex-Keltron official, K. Nandakumar, founded this small but fast growing company headquartered in Thiruvananthapuram.

SunTec started off with a sub-contracting work to develop a billing system for the then Department of Telecom.

Later, SunTec developed its `TBMS' software suite out of this project. Today many variants of TBMS are out, targeted at telecom and financial services sectors. "Our revenues in 2005-06 should be in the range of $ 18-20 million and 60-70 per cent of this would be from products," Mr. Nandakumar said.

Today the company has clients such as US-based Comcast, Batelco of Bahrain, Essent of the Netherlands, Motorala in the U.K., Lloyds TSB and many others.

SunTec's rapid growth is evident in that it is doubling its annual revenues this year.

The NeST Group has also built software products such as FliSAFE and FliSAVE for the avionics sector, which are now finding overseas clients.

FliSAFE is a tool to interpret the data within the blackbox while FliSAVE helps users achieve optimum savings from each flight, said V. M. Shafi, senior corporate vice president of the NeST Group.

"Yemen Airways and Ameeri Flights in the U.A.E. are already using our products," he said. Marketing efforts are now on in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia for Nest Avionics' products.

Softex Digital, another Technopark-based company, has also broken into the world market. The software and games developed by Softex Digital are now being used by Siemens in its mobile handsets.

Alliances help

Marketing is the most critical issue that makes or breaks a software

product, and these companies have taken pains to ensure that they have formed the right alliances to sell their products in the global markets.

For instance, IBS has tied up with Cendant Travel Distribution Services, a leading travel and real estate service provider, who will be marketing products such as iRes. Softex Digital has struck deals with Seimens and Nokia while SunTec also has got many partners such as LogicaCMG and Hewlett Packard.

IBS and SunTec have also invested in setting up overseas subsidiaries and offices and have also roped in foreign nationals at top positions.

Is there anything special that Kerala has to offer for software product development? After all, the State's software export is a paltry Rs. 300 crores, compared to Rs.10,743 crores of Tamil Nadu, Rs. 27,600 crores of Karnataka and Rs.8,270 crores of Andhra Pradesh.

Mr. Mathews says that the relatively lower employee attrition prevailed so far in Kerala has helped his company.

"Losing employees midway through a product development is more critical than losing people on a software service project as staff stability is very important in product development," he said.

This has also enabled companies to impart better training, values and their own work culture to employees.

On the other hand, employees in a product development team stay focussed and handle a much more challenging job, than simply writing software codes or maintaining applications and systems.

Since even a small team of developers can create products, Kerala can be an ideal place for product development.

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