TNS Mode, NFO to merge in Jan

Leading market research agencies TNS Mode and NFO MBL India have decided to merge their operations in India and Sri Lanka with effect from January 1, 2004. The new outfit has been named TNS India (P) Ltd.

While NFO managing director Jenny Abraham will become managing director of the merged firm, Debi Basu, joint managing director of TNS Mode, will move to the Asia-Pacific Regional Management Team with responsibilities for standardising all operations in Asia Pacific for TNS.

The company has formed a nine-member board under the aegis of board chairman Shiloo Chattopadhyay.

The merger comes within six months of TNS completing its global acquisition of NFO WorldGroup, Inc. from The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. in July 2003. In May, TNS ghad announced that it would take over NFO in a $425 million cash-cum-stock deal.

Commenting on the merger, Abraham said: "The combined expertise and capabilities of the two companies will help TNS bring to its clients in India the best of research technology, practices and knowledge. The combined business will give TNS India the requisite scale to invest substantially in leveraging technology for serving clients better, more efficient and accurate data capture and analysis and reduced lead times for research projects."

Identifying the focus areas for TNS India, she added: "Both the TNS companies have had sustained growth in the last few years of almost double the industry average. We have ambitious growth plans for the year 2004 also. We would concentrate on aggressively growing in specialist sectors like automotive, telecom, customer satisfaction and stakeholder management and social and development research."

TNS has invested in an outsource centre in a software technology park in Hyderabad. There will be greater investments in this area in 2004 and 2005.