Ramco Systems is undoubtedly one Indian company which has done the country proud with
its indigenously developed high-end ERP product Ramco Marshal. After the much-hyped launch
of Marshal 3.0 by software king Bill Gates-during his much-hyped visit in
 CEO: S PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS
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March 1997-the year 1997-98 has been a relatively low-key year for the company.
Ramco registered total revenues of Rs 81 crore in the last fiscal, including revenues from
the networking division, thereby registering a 32 percent growth over the previous year’s
revenues of Rs 61 crore. The company has a total of 150 installations, with 75 in the
domestic market. Of this, the version 3.0 of the product launched last year alone has 25
customers worldwide.
Of the past year’s revenues, 80 percent came in from new customers, while new sales
from existing customers stood at 40 percent. The company also had 80 percent revenues
coming in from the private sector, with the remaining being contributed by public sector
companies. Nevertheless, Ramco tried to create more visibility in the market by organizing
an ERP conference on ‘Marshal In The New Millennium-Get ERP To Work For You’ in
partnership with Microsoft Corp. and Compaq.
In the networking and datacom division, the Enterprise Networking Solutions (ENS)
Group’s Bay Networks and AMP Inc. tie-ups brought in significant revenues in the last
year. The company tied up with Network Associates to provide synergistic products and
technologies and with Microsoft Corp. as solution provider. The ENS Group also offers
networking consultancy and auditing services, alongwith options for improving network
performance, security, reliability, scalability, and expandability.
Ramco developed a new implementation methodology-RSPRINT (Ramco’s Strategic PRogram for
ImplementatioN and Training) that provides a framework for implementation of Ramco’s
products worldwide. This proved to be a success for the company which saw faster and more
efficient implementations of the customer sites such as Global Telesystems and Coats
Viyella India Ltd. The company also partnered with SRA Systems for pre-sales, sales, and
implementation.
As part of its effort to strengthen its marketing and implementation efforts, the
company also tied up with Punjab Communications Ltd to market and implement its product.
Yet another strategic move of the company was setting up of Ramco Marshal support
system, that provides Internet access from any of its offices on a round-the-clock basis
to cater to different zone timings.
Why the company has not made aggressive plans to penetrate the potential US and
European markets is a debatable question. Whether its strategic moves, huge work force,
and timely tie-ups will see the company going strong in the current year, is to be seen.
