Nihilent to set up Pune unit

Nihilent, a global business consulting and solutions integration company, has opened its second development facility spread over 40,000 square feet in Pune as part of its expansion plans.

Growing at over 70 per cent in financial year (FY) 2005-06, the company is looking at an Initial public Offering in 2009. "We will be a Rs 70 crore company this FY as we have grown at over 70 per cent from Rs 35 crore last FY," said LC Singh, president and CEO, Nihilent adding,

"We expect a compounded annual growth rate of 40-50 per cent for the next two years as we plan for an initial public offering by 2009."

The company also plans to achieve the 1,000 employee mark by June 2007 up from the current 700 people. "To meet the growing business opportunities, we have doubled our staff strength from 300 last year and plan to have 800 software developers by the end of the year and over 1000 by middle of 2007," said Singh.

Nihilent has also expanded its market focus over the last 12 months into US and UK. "South Africa contributes to 80 per cent of our over all revenues and now we are also focusing on the US, UK and the domestic market," he said.

"We expect to break even this year in the US where we started our operations a year ago. Even in the UK where we setup operations recently, we have got three clients," he shared. In South Africa also, the company has further strengthened its with clients such as Barclays, MTN, Mutichoice and South African Airways.

In the domestic market, it is got new wins in the banking and finance sector with IndusInd Bank in addition to consulting for State Bank of India (SBI). It has bagged four clients for its Customer Feedback System including SBI and the company is targeting the banking, retail, telecom and hospitality industries.

A new focus area for the company will be its BPO practice where it has in the past set up captive centres of companies like Maersk (previously P&O Nedloyd) in India.