PATNI COMPUTER SYSTEMS Confronting Challenges

In the last fiscal, the company

performed below the industry average. It clocked a turnover of Rs 300 crore, at

a growth rate of just 28%, as compared to 60% in the previous year with a

turnover of Rs 234 crore. Ecommerce and embedded systems were its focus areas,

but surprisingly these brought in only 4% of the total revenue. Incidentally,

exports grew byonly 28%.

But despite the company doing top-end

work in high technology areas, the margins seemed to be pretty low. It put the

quality initiative in place by achieving

the SEI-CMM Level 4 certification, and would be achieving the Level 5

certification too. PCS’ focus will be on high technology areas and being an

end-to-end solutions provider. The company will also be focusing on new

technologies like WAP, mobile commerce and embedded systems. It will continue to

position itself as an IT consulting partner.

Onsite

development work brought in 44% of the revenue to the company. The US was the

biggest market at 75%, while Europe contributed 14%, Japan 8% and Asia-Pacific

3%. As far as the application areas are concerned, maintenance was the company’s

largest revenue earner at

53%, followed by development at 24% and ERP at 10%.

The company garnered all its revenue

through projects. Compared to the previous year, the productivity per person

also showed a nominal increase of Rs 2 lakh. While in the previous year it was

Rs 11 lakh, last fiscal it turned out to be Rs 12.5 lakh, with a 48% growth in

manpower.

Patni Computers has to gear up to face the challenges

of the emerging technologies and improve its performance on the ecommerce and

embedded systems front, if it has to be a growth-driven company. DQ

Fact Sheet

START-UP YEAR: 1978 PRODUCTS AND SERVICES: Software

exports BRANCH OFFICES: 12 DEVELOPMENT CENTERS: 5 EMPLOYEES: 2,397 ADDRESS: Unit

No. 55, SDF II, SEEPZ, Andheri (E), Mumbai - 400 096 TEL: 829 1454-829 0479 FAX:

829 2764 WEBSITE: www.patni.com