Computers Today July 16-31, 2000; Circuit

July 16-31, 2000 THE CIRCUIT

Charging the Juggernaut

Over three decades, through 68 offices in 50 countries and with 13,000 consultants and over 50,000 man years of consulting experience, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has established itself as Asia's largest independent global software and services company. And leading this giant from the front is chief executive S. Ramadorai. A TCS veteran, Ramadorai has chalked out a new business focus. According to him, E-business will account for 25 per cent of the enterprise's revenue in the current financial year (April 2000 to March 2001). The company notched up Rs 2,115 crore in the last fiscal ending March 31, 2000 and hopes its revenue to shoot up to Rs 3,000 crore in the current fiscal. Ramadorai has identified certain drivers of growth to enhance TCS' end-to-end E-business solutions for global clients. The company offers to deliver a complete suite of services in the E-space-from E-business strategy and implementation to maintenance and outsourcing. Under his leadership, TCS has established specialised practices with E-business, which includes E-commerce, customer relationship management, supply chain management and enterprise resource planning. According to Ramadorai, "TCS has provided a wide spectrum of services world-wide. Our client list reads like the who's who of the international corporate world." Undoubtedly, Ramadorai's vision and TCS' expertise in several business domains will enable India's number one IT company to offer complete solutions.

Quality work is the yardstick for success in the competitive software industry. But are we able to churn out quality work, questions Girish V. Seshagiri, CEO of US-based Advanced Information Services Inc. (AIS). The software development company with its subsidiary in Chennai has adopted the quality standards set by software quality process guru Watts Humphrey, called Personal Software Process (PSP) and Team Software Process (TSP). Says Seshagiri, the founder of AIS, "I am a great fan of Watts Humphrey. He has set the standards for improving the quality in software development. I adopted this in my company and the results were phenomenal. As a mark of respect, I thought I will start a software quality institute in my homeland, Chennai, and help the Indian industry." This gave birth to the Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute in Tamil Nadu. The institute imparts training on how to develop quality software products. "The interesting part is we address individual performances. Each person has to work on quality standards and it would lead to a quality software development activity in totality." The institute is trying to build quality software professionals in the country. "For India to become the IT superpower, developing quality products is very important," observes Seshagiri, who plans to spread it to other parts of the country as well.

Healtheon/WebMD India Pvt. Ltd has appointed Arvind Gupta as managing director of the company's operations in Hyderabad. Gupta was earlier working with TCS, Gurgaon, as the vice president. He was in charge of human resources, administration and manpower allocation functions for the TCS centre. During his 14-year tenure at TCS he was responsible for carrying out software development projects for large financial institutions and banks. Gupta holds a BE (mechanical) degree and has done his MBA from Delhi. He has over 24 years of experience in carrying out IT assignments and has successfully completed projects for clients in India, Europe, Japan, the USA, Switzerland and the Middle East.

Biren Ghosh, CEO, UTV Interactive, dreams to build a portal makers club-a platform where Web-entrepreneurs would share their success and failure. The firm has already launched seven dotcoms in the last seven months, straddling the regional language (B-to-C), entertainment (B-to-B) and E-commerce spaces. "Our portal will be a language shopping complex," he says.

Aashu Calapa has been appointed general manager, human resources, Customer- Asset.com, a Bangalore-based E-CRM services company. CustomerAsset.com provides E-CRM services, including customer interaction and database management, to dotcoms and online businesses. Armed with a master's degree in personnel management and industrial relations from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Calapa brings with him experience of over a decade with Wipro Infotech.

Quantum Corp. has appointed Thomas H. Scott as the executive vice president, world-wide sales and corporate marketing. With over 25 years of experience in sales, marketing and general management, Scott has also been assigned to lead Quantum's corporate branding and communications strategies. Earlier, Scott served Toshiba as vice president, sales, and as vice president and general manager of the company's computer systems division from 1990 to 1997.

Sanjay Kapoor, chief operating officer of Bharti Cellular Ltd, Delhi's cellular service provider under the brand name of AirTel, has been appointed chief executive officer of the company. He takes over from Anil Nayar, who will now move to the corporate headquarters of Bharti Enterprises to assume a larger corporate role. These changes are a part of a major organisational restructuring exercise of Bharti Enterprises. Kapoor has been with Bharti Cellular for the past two years and has been actively charting AirTel's entry into leading-edge Internet-based mobile communication, including WAP and GPRS. And towards this end, AirTel has announced its alliance with Phone.com, licensing the latter's UP.Link software, thereby introducing a platform for providing its customers a range of WAP-based personalised mobile Internet services.

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