Mastek to make Pune hub for global operations

Mastek, a global application solutions provider focused on insurance, financial services and government sector is planning to make Pune an integral part of its overall operations as it looks to undertake new initiatives for further growth.

Beefing up its presence in Pune over the last two years from 74 employees in 2004 to 140 in 2005, Mastek currently has 220 employees in Pune working on the insurance platform, internet competency centre, asset management, government programs here.

"With the opening up of the solutions market, Mastek is looking at Pune becoming central to the company's operations, " Jamshed Jussawalla, general manager (Finance), Mastek said on expanding the Pune operations further to support some of its new initiatives and partnerships.

Among the key initiatives driving firm's growth in Pune is the its recent partnership with the largest systems integrator in France, Uriware. "We expect this alliance to generate $30 million over the next three years," said Jussawalla.

Also, with the increasing customer interest in software as a service, Mastek is also developing a new service oriented architecture for its insurance solution, Elixir, which will be launched as Core Elixir by the end of the year.

The solution will have channel management, new business management, re-insurance, policy management, claims processing, under writing, statutory obligations and other modules.

"The revenue from the insurance vertical is growing consistently by 50 per cent for over the past three years. The new platform will allow Mastek to provide comprehensive solutions for the insurance industry and enables us to deliver significant value to our customers," said Sudhakar Ram, chief executive officer, Mastek, while adding that the Core Elixir framework is being spear headed in Pune and it will be ready for a global launch by December.

The Rs 701-crore company's US operations grew at 40 per cent to contribute to 23 per cent of the company's overall revenues as compared with 23 per cent growth in the European operations, which contributes to over 65 per cent of its overall revenues.

"We are now focusing upon the US markets," said Jussawalla. Also on the cards is transistioning of two more processes in the coming year for Carretek Corporation Venture, taking the total number of processes being outsourced from three to five.

"The BPO arm currently employees 150 people and will be ramped up as we get more processes and clients," said Jussawalla.