‘It is easier to find bright, educated people in India’

RM Plc is the UK’s leading supplier of information communication technology (ICT) and services to schools. This 30-year-old company had its worst year in 2002 when it suffered significant losses. It was in April of the same year that Tim Pearson took over as CEO. Today, he is spearheading RM Plc’s turnaround with clear-cut strategies–one of them being the setting up of an offshore development center at Kerala’s Technopark. In an interview with R Sreekumar, Pearson outlines the company’s major projects and its plans for future. Excepts:

Tim Pearson

CEO

lHow do you account for the losses registered in 2002?

Our operational costs in the UK are very high. Besides, there were complaints from customers about bad service delivery. Many of them were unable to get the required information regarding the use of products and services.

lWhat steps have you taken to turnaround the company?

First, we implemented a rating system whereby our customers rate us every three months on a scale of 1 to 10. The results of this exercise have been encouraging. Second, we started our first offshore development center in India. This center delivers high-quality software solutions as well as technical support to our customers. Analysts expect us to post a turnover of £215 million and a profit of £8.5 million this year.

lWhich major projects have you outsourced to India?

We have a seven-year contract for conducting the UK’s first online examinations. RM is providing the complete end-to-end solutions from software development, conducting exams, tabulation and publication of results. The project will monitor the progress achieved by the schools and students. To begin with, 14-year-olds in 81 schools will be assessed and about 600,000 students will take these exams annually. Twelve persons are already working on this project at the technopark in Kerala and that number is expected to increase substantially. The other major project is a £30 million contract to provide managed ICT learning and teaching environment for all of South Lancashire Council’s learning establishments. This project is also being carried out at the Kerala
technopark.

lWhat advantages does India offer RM
Plc?

Indians are very good learners. It is easier to find bright, educated people in India than in England. We want to choose the countries carefully for our offshore development and marketing activities. We are certainly planning to expand in India as sensibly as possible. Operating out of India makes sense for RM and we plan to explore the Indian market so as to generate revenues from here.

lIs there any anxiety about outsourcing in your company?

Outsourcing is inevitable. But unlike other sectors, IT is not unionized in the UK. But we have to be sensitive while dealing with the issue. At RM Plc, we have a labor turnover of 17% and we are growing. The situation is not that serious.

lWhat visible changes are there in the use of IT in the education sector?

In 1973, when RM Plc commenced operations, there were no computers in UK schools; now each school has a student-PC ratio of 6:1. Earlier, all purchase decisions were centralized; now each school has an IT budget.

R SREEKUMAR/CNS in Thiruvananthapuram