L&T Technology Services looks at startups to strengthen IoT space

The company is looking at mining top 30 accounts to grow its business, while looking at adjoining areas of opportunities for growth

Engineering services provider L&T Technology Services plans to collaborate with startups to either take or jointly built solutions in the so called internet of things space to its global customers.

L&T Technology Services, which has filed its draft red herring prospectus, ahead of a public offer, says that in emerging technology areas, there is a level playing field for startups against large companies.

"The digital world offers level playing field. Startups that are innovative can take away half of the business of a large company," Kumar Prabhas, chief operating officer at L&T Technology Services.

The Vadodara-based firm is a sponsor of the Nasscom's centre of excellence for IoT in Bengaluru, where it supports the ecosystem of startups through mentorship, governance and technology development. The firm plans to sponsor similar centres in other cities including Mumbai.

 

L&T Technology Services claims market leadership in the pure play engineering services segment, offering its services to global clients such as Scania and Procter and Gamble.

The firm said India is uniquely positioned to grab a larger share of the engineering services market from players in Europe and US, due to its cost competitiveness as well as skills in emerging areas of digital technologies. Only 6.7 per cent or $67 billion of the corporate engineering R&D spends of $1,007 billion has been addressed by firms so far, which offers huge opportunities for growth.

The company is looking at mining the top 30 accounts to grow its business, while looking at adjoining areas of opportunities for growth, said Prabhas.

L&T Technology Services has invested on its own product development and testing labs to offer services in industry segments such as transportation, industrial products, telecom and hi-tech, process industry and medical devices. On Monday, it set up an engineering centre in Dublin, Ohio, which would focus on supporting the Smart Cities initiative with focus on connected vehicle-to-vehicle communications, electric self-driving shuttles and autonomous vehicles. The unit, the seventh delivery centre for L&T Technology Services in the US, will employ 50 people.

As of March 31, 2016, L&T Technology Services Limited had more than 200 employees operating out of its onshore delivery centres' in the US and more than 8,000 engineers from nine nationalities serving over 200 customers, including more than 50 Fortune 500 customers globally.