Software firm ECMi favours Pune to Bangalore

Enterprise Commerce Management (ECMi) Software Pvt Ltd, a software company promoted by US-based non- resident Indians (NRI), has recently shifted its entire operations from Bangalore to Pune due to better work culture at the latter place.

ECMi Software, a Dallas-based company, which has a turnover of around $5 million and a workforce of around 100 persons, has based 60 per cent of them at Pune. ECMi is a 100 per cent export oriented unit and registered with the Software Park of India (STPI).

Founded in 2001, ECMi focuses on the fast-growing segment of outsourced enterprise packaged product development.

ECMi's growing list of customers include US-based companies developing enterprise applications in areas such as software testing automation, supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM), said Nitin Ahuja, co-founder and chief executive officer of the company.

Speaking to Business Standard, Ahuja said, "We have already invested around $two million in Pune. In the next couple of years, we want to expand our Pune facility by 150 per cent."

On shifting base to Pune, Ahuja said, "If you want to hire someone in Bangalore, they come with a lot of conditionalities thrown in, such as refusal by the person to come to Whitefield (Bangalore's Silicon Valley) due to the distance factor. On the contrary, there are examples in Pune that people come to Hinjewadi even from Panvel (near Mumbai) every day and such conditions can't be simply accepted in today's competitive world."

Again the churn in the sector is always on in Bangalore. A person with an offer letter will certainly go to three-four firms to negotiate a better offer. But this trend is negligible in Pune, he added.

Besides, better technical education facilities in Pune was another major attraction as young graduates coming out of the educational institutions form the backbone of the talent pool which comes to the IT industry, he added.