CA Technologies, a Fortune 500 company formerly called Computer Associates that made news in 2004 on reports of insider trading, has been on the rebuilding track for about three years. It will a become market leader in its space within the next two years, Amit Chatterjee, managing director of its Indian arm, tells Swati Garg. Edited excerpts:
How do you see CA Technologies positioned?
We are one of the top three players in our space, with IBM and HP the other two. On strategic positioning, the focus is clear — five verticals, namely, government, defence, IT-ITeS (information technology-enabled services) , BFSI (banking, financial services, insurance) and telecom. The focus is also on strategic hiring.
What are your growth plans?
In 2010, we grew at 50 per cent in India and this financial year, we are looking at a comparable growth rate. We want to double our workforce within the next two years, in which time we are also looking at becoming market leaders in our space. The idea remains to partner with Indian global partners, which means we partner with Indian companies that have a global base and work with them as top-tier system integrators.
We also plan on entering tier-II by partnering with smaller companies with a Rs 100-200 crore turnover, keeping the focus on distribution. Here we will work through cloud computing.
How will that happen, given that both HP and IBM are far ahead of you?
The strategy is to provide software that is not wasted, given that 50 per cent of all available software is never installed. Our model of competition will not be volume-based, but backed by targeting enterprise business. While we might not be able to compete with HP and IBM as a software company, the idea will be to become the preferred original equipment manufacture (OEM) partner.
Government and defence spend appear to be the new buzzwords.
The government is slated to spend $10 billion (Rs 45,000 crore, on IT) over the next two years across ministries, a budget spend that exceeds what it spent over the past 10 years. The power sector alone has, for example, earmarked an IT-spend of $2 bn over the next two years. While the first wave of IT allocation in governance is well underway, in the form of e-governance and State Wide Area Network (SWAN) initiatives, there will be a greater speed and scope in the IT-enablement of government processes.
This is where opportunities for growth in Indian IT will happen, especially with increasing saturation in the West. Our market share through partnerships in this segment is almost 70 per cent. We will leverage best practices adopted through the work we have already done and exploit the connections and expertise we have built on the way for greater exploitation of this opportunity. The next big allocation will be for Mission Mode Projects (MMPs).
More From This Section
How do MMPs work?
The government will be allocating about 500 such contracts over the next two years, where each contract is sized at about $1 million (Rs 4.5 crore). Every state will get more than seven MMPs and these will be further devolved. These will be projects where the government will move into the cloud, marking the initial forays of the government into the virtualisation of data and infrastructure. The fact that we have worked on SWAN will help us gain leverage when MMPs come into the picture.
Your thoughts on cloud, another big buzzword?
We are gearing up for business opportunity, given the security issues that cloud entails. In 2010, we made three acquisitions -- Oblicore in January, 3tera and Nimsoft in March -- all of which were made keeping in mind the burgeoning cloud business. The emphasis, again, remains on working with service providers, especially with movement towards cloud and arrival of new formats such as cloud service providers.
Also, given your focus on channel, will the 3G roll-out have an impact?
The specialisation for us is in the management of IT infrastructure. 3G rollout leads to the automatic increase of bandwidth allocation, aiding penetration, meaning more accessibility. There will be a change from voice to data and from computers to SmartPhones. Here, the need for monitoring customer experience, given the need for customer retention in telecom, will take centrestage, given the increasing saturation. All of this would mean a need for a diverse IT infrastructure. Given our ability to generate data related to traffic and the need for service assurance, there are increasing opportunities present for us.