PLM firm sees greater role in service sector

UGS Corporation, a US-based product lifecycle management (PLM) player, plans to increase its operations by entering the service sector and also increasing the head count in the development centre in India. The $1 billion company plans to go for IPO by 2006.

Sources in the industry say that the company will increase the headcount in its Pune centre from 500 to 1,000 in two years. This is the largest development centre of the company.

"In India, the services sector is growing at a much faster rate than the manufacturing sector and we see a larger scope in the service sector," says Hans-Kurt Lubberstedt, executive vice president, Asia Pacific.

The company, as a PLM player sees the rising apparel and pharma sector as the potential areas where PLM products can be introduced.

The jewellery industry is another area where the the company seems to be getting more orders. With increase in variety of designs, the competitiveness of the industry has increased. This has forced the industry to reduce time to market and dwell more on machines for designing.

The company's Asia pacific region contributes about 18 per cent of the global revenues. India contributes about 10 per cent to the revenues of Asia-Pacific, Japan being the largest market. The company aims to strengthen partnership in India.

The company has 40 per cent of its Indian revenues coming from automobile, 6 per cent from Aerospace, 24 per cent from engineering services, 11 per cent from manufacturing and 6 per cent from education.