Aspiring to go global

Aspire Systems is one of the few Indian companies in the OPD category.

Every year, IT companies across the world enter the CMMI (capability maturity model integration) regime to upgrade their CMMI levels. But Chennai-based Aspire Systems, focused on helping software companies create innovative products, is presently not keen on obtaining any certification for its processes.

"We are a product development firm and we require flexibility. We want our people to be agile, flexible and innovative and not spending more time on paperwork and other issues," says Gowri Shankar Subramanian, chief executive officer of Aspire Systems.

Aspire is one of the companies which has made significant gains in the field of outsourced product development (OPD). It is engaged in developing products from concept to finish that find applications across business domains.

Compared to generic IT services, OPD is a specialised field. Few companies in India have forayed into this space. Globally, the OPD market is worth $20 billion.

OPD is more about visualisation of innovative products than efficient and quality coding of given specifications in offshore software development and maintenance of software applications, Subramanian says.

Aspire has about 30 customers in the small and medium business (SMB) segment, mainly in the US. Its customers have filed 17 patents based primarily on Aspire's work.

"We have been focussing on the SMB segment because only small and medium-sized companies will outsource their core development work.Large companies outsource non-core activities," said Subramanian.

In the three years since its inception, the company has grown two and half times and expects to end 2006-07 with a revenue of Rs 30 crore and touch Rs 50 crore in 2007-08

However, having built strong relationships in the SMB segment and gained expertise in the product development segment, the company is confident of expanding its focus on bigger companies as well to achieve scale and garner a larger pie of the OPD market. "We are keen to have a client base mix of large and small and medium customers," said Subramanian.

As part of this move, executive vice-president Bhoovarahan Thirumalai, will be moving to the US by January end. The company will also increase its US marketing offices to four from the present two.