Manugistics mulls putting partnerships in place

Manugistics Group Inc, a global provider of synchronised supply chain and revenue management solutions, is contemplating putting partnerships in place to market its products in India.

Speaking to Business Standard, Salil Joshi, managing director of Manugistics Software Services (India) Private Limited, said, "We have around 1,200 customers globally but none in India. However, there is a growing awareness of the value additions that supply chain management and revenue management solutions can bring to a business. There has been significant interest from companies over here and we will be looking at marketing our products in a major way after we complete the transition of our entire product development work to India."

Manugistics will be marketing its products directly and also via partners in India.

The $193-million company that has around 140 employees in India, will be increasing its employee-strength to 230 by March.

"We intend to increase this number to 300 within a short period from then," Joshi added. The company that so far has been hiring only experienced professionals will be undertaking a campus recruitment drive from January 2006.

Regarding attrition, Joshi said that the India development centre has lost five people from 145 that it had started with nine months back.

"The industry is going through a phase where retaining employees is becoming a tough task, and besides the pull of higher salaries, a trend that we see is with regard to title inflation. This means, although the work of a person may remain the same, he/she may be given a seemingly attractive title in a new company to recruit him/her," Joshi said.

"We, therefore, are using the pitch of intellectual property creation to retain our employees. Besides, we are using other means like investing in the interiors to add to the level of comfort of employees," he added.

Manugistics has spent around Rs 2.4 crore on the interiors of its development centre in India. The company has imported most of the furniture from Singapore and Malaysia.

"Our desks, for instance, are at an angle of 120 degrees. This is to ensure that an employee can spread his/her hands across the entire desk without having the need to stretch or stand up. Such ideas do contribute to our other efforts of retaining employees," Joshi said.

Manugistics will be completing the transfer of its entire product development work to India in the next six months. Simultaneously, it will also be ensuring that all the levels of client servicing are done from India.

At present, customer queries are routed to India through their counterparts abroad. "In another six months, we will have employees over here working on shifts as well to enable direct interaction with clients abroad," he added.

Customisation of products will, however, continue abroad. Manugistics' clients include Levi Strauss & Co, Starbucks, Boeing, Vodafone and Ford Motor Company among others.

For the first quarter ended May 31, 2005, Manugistics recorded total revenues of $46.7 million, down 10 per cent from $51.6 million in the first quarter of the previous year.