'Partnership with a leading enterprise brings best practices'

How did ProV start? What is the funding received till

date and the current holding pattern?



I was the CEO of Aces International, based in CA, and started ProV in 2003

end. ProV was funded by me. I own the firm 100% and may have an IPO in India in

the next 1-2 years. ProV is an application development and systems integration

company and its customers include Gap, Blue Cross Blue Shield, AT&T, Merrill

Lynch, MCI, Sun Chemical, etc. It has grown at a tremendous rate since inception

in March 2003 and has set up a



development center in Mumbai, India. 

What inspired ProV?



The success with Aces International-a small staff augmentation company,

which I sold in 2003. In Aces, I saw the importance of a global workforce as a

means of bringing high quality, high value services to IT consumers. I also

understood its implications-a global workforce implied a 24-hour workday,

which implied more rapid turnarounds as well as constant access for clients.

Acting on this logic, I established both onshore and offshore development

centers in Tampa, Florida and Mumbai, India, enabling accessible, collaborative

application development. I also saw the advantage of close partnerships with

leading enterprise software manufacturers, such as Siebel, SAP, and Oracle. This

brings accepted best practices and best technologies to enterprise clients. Thus

ProV was inspired.

What are your current revenues and how would you break

it up between IT services and BPO?



ProV is just over two years old. We generated around $10 mn in 2005 and

expect to reach $18 mn in 2006. ProV has grown well and have several Fortune 500

customers such as GAP, Williams Sonoma, Leap Wireless, Morgan Stanley, Dole etc.

In 2005, ProV was selected by IT Florida as the Fastest Growing Technology Firm

in Florida. The award was called 'High Growth' firm of Florida.

What are your offerings on the software services side?



The services on the software side are focused around health care. We have a

lot of expertise in areas such as customer enrollment, billing, service, and

claims judication, medical informatics, Data Warehousing etc. Most of this work

is done for health insurance firms and not for hospitals. Our domain expertise

especially in the healthcare space has allowed us to bag clients such as Blue

Cross of Florida, Kaiser Healthcare Services. Our top strategic clients are

Kaiser Permanante in CA, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, Carefirst in DC ,

Horison Blue Cross in NJ and Sun Chemical in NJ.

What is ProV's offshore strategy? In terms of offshore

facilities in India and elsewhere, please elaborate on your offerings.



ProV's office in Mumbai focuses on lead generation, recruiting etc. ProV

now uses two Indian firms based in Chennai to do our offshore projects. They are

Megasoft for application development and Sify for infrastructure management.

ProV will soon have a delivery center in India in 2006. We are also looking at

Hungary, Poland for similar centers. 

What is the most important factor for you at ProV?



Along with sharp business acumen, technology and domain expertise, personal

rapport with the customer is the fact that differentiates ProV from the other IT

service providers. For ProV customer relation is single thing that tops the

agenda. That is why the company has been able t foray into the space, which was

otherwise dominated by the giants such as the Wipro or TCSs. In less than two

years we have bagged large clients in the US who otherwise did not do business

other than the likes of the TCS and Wipros of the world.

Minu Sirsalewala