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Tata Elxsi on massive recruitment drive

Krishnan Thiagarajan

Vishwanath Kulkarni

BANGALORE, Aug. 13

TATA Elxsi, a Tata group company, is planning to ramp up its manpower strength to cater to the software development requirements in the overseas market.

The company has embarked on a massive recruitment drive and is planning to double the existing strength of its software professionals.

It is currently focussed on the four key segments of film and videos, CAD/CAM, education and research and commercial/networking.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr. S. Devarajan, Chairman and CEO, said that the company was planning to add over 400 professionals in the next 6-9 months.

The company currently has some 750 employees, of which about 400 are in the software development division. Since it already has a full-fledged development centre at Bangalore, the scaling up of infrastructure to support the increased manpower should not pose a problem, he added.

Mr. Devarajan also said that the company has begun the scaling up of its global presence by opening six new offices in the US and Europe.

``The expansion of operations overseas is expected to provide a new impetus and enhance the company's market for high-end design and development work.''

The company's domestic business has grown substantially in terms of value added offerings and currently accounts for nearly 75 per cent of its turnover, with the global business accounting for the rest.

``We are planning increase focus on the company's global operations and raise the overseas contribution to 50 per cent.''

He added that this change in the revenue composition could also help in improving operating profit margins. ``As more high value added software development work will be undertaken overseas, the higher value addition will add to margins.''

In the past, the company had been undertaking more of support services for Indian companies in the domestic market.

For the first quarter ended June 30, 2000, the company has recorded a 240 per cent increase in post-tax earnings at Rs. 1.35 crores and a 21 per cent in total turnover to Rs. 29.01 crores over the corresponding period last year.

As of March 31, 2000, Tata Elxsi had an order book in excess of Rs. 100 crores mainly in the film and video segment. The buoyant performance in the first quarter current fiscal was attributable to this strong order-book position.

Commenting on customer loyalty, Mr. Devarajan said that nearly 80 per cent were repeat customers, who were willing to work with the company on a long-term basis.

Tata Elxsi has joined a select band of companies in the world after it was recently assessed at the SEI-CMM Level 5 by KPMG for implementation of quality management systems and software engineering practices.