Serena upbeat about APAC, Indian markets

With India Inc in the mood to go global, Serena Software, a provider of change-governance solutions, is bullish on cornering a bigger pie of the change governance solutions market in India, especially in the banking and financial industry space.

The California-headquartered company, which started its direct operations in India in 2004, is upbeat about the Asia Pacific and Indian market. APAC currently contributes about 20 per cent to Serena's turnover.

"As India's banking and financial industry is starting to go global, we are well-placed with our change governance tools and product offerings that help leverage the change to a business advantage," said K C Yee, vice-president, APAC, Serena Software.

Yee said the RBI was insisting on banks putting in place a proper policy framework on 'know your customer' (KYC) and anti-money laundering measures to ensure greater transparency, traceability and accountability. The post-IPO scams in some of the major banks in India has prompted RBI to take these steps.

"As online banking and customer relationship management (CRM) systems are increasingly gaining popularity, our products will be needed by the banking solution providers who provide solution to banks," Yee said. He said that Serena provided a process engine in banking called 'procedures management', that automates the whole system and controls the whole environment.

According to a recent survey by a global market research firm MarketShare in the APAC region, 70 per cent of the CIOs who participated in the survey felt that they will gain an advantage over their competitors by complying with the regulatory compliance standard.

The survey also found IT playing a major role in meeting regulatory compliance standards. "Asia is waking up to the relevance of international compliance requirements such as the Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel II. Need for compliance will be driven by demands of corporate headquarters and global trade requirements," said Yee.

He said that Serena's solutions deliver change-governance by allowing business and IT to share a common frame of reference, helping companies visualise real business benefits of a change, orchestrate responses across change lifecycle and enforce effective business process to more effectively govern change.

To increase its product portfolio to meet various verticals like BFSI, semi-conductor, high-tech manufacturing, system integrators and telecom, Serena had acquired 10 companies in the last five years.

Serena, which recorded a turnover of $250 million in 2005-06, has over 15,000 customers worldwide.

At present, it works with HCL and Cognizant as its partners for product development in India.

Keshav Prakash, country manager, Serena Software, said that the company doubled its investment in India last year for building infrastructure, raising headcount and partners. "We are looking at making more strategic investments in these areas in India in the coming years as well," Prakash added.