KPIT eyes its top 25 automotive clients to build revenue momentum

Pune-based engineering firm is looking at posting a revenue growth of 18% in the ongoing fiscal

Coming out of a complex merger process with Birlasoft, KPIT Technologies is now focusing on its 25 top clients in the automotive space in order to gather revenue momentum. The Pune-headquartered engineering services company is also looking at posting a revenue growth of 18 per cent in the ongoing fiscal, focused on automotive engineering and mobility solutions, co-founder and CEO Kishor Patil told Business Standard.

"Any OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) spends more than $1 billion in R&D space. So, there are significant opportunities available in this space and right now, we are focussed on 25 customers, which really go deeper (in automotive domain)," Patll said.

Last year, CK Birla Group-owned Birlasoft and KPIT Technologies had announced that they would merge and then split into two publicly-traded companies – one focused on IT services, the other on engineering services. After the demerger, the engineering services business came to KPIT Technologies and the company got listed on the exchanges this April.

"We believe that there is a global leadership opportunity for KPIT (in automotive engineering space). So, we have decided to focus on mobility. That's a huge decision considering that IT services was relatively an easy business as compared to core engineering," Patil added.

With a marquee client list comprising the likes of BMW, Cummins, Denso, Hitachi, Honda among others, KPIT is also aggressively localising its workforce in US and Europe to clinch large deals in engineering services space.

The firm has around 6,500 engineers out of which about 800 are located in client geographies in Europe. "We already have a strong presence in Europe, and we are expanding further by building a development centre in Munich in Germany. We also have presence in Detroit (US), Shanghai (China), Bangkok (Thailand). We are also collaborating with universities in these geographies," Patil said. He also said that the company would add around 15 per cent more engineers every year to sustain its business growth.

Talking about the demand environment, the CEO of KPIT said that it remained robust with even some three digit deal opportunities being available in the market place. "We are focusing on 25 customers, who can become at least $25 million (revenue generating clients), if not $40 million (in coming years)," he said.

KPIT has posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 30.9 crore and revenue from operations of Rs 501.2 crore for the quarter ended March 31. This was the company’s first quarterly earnings after the demerger and thus was not comparable with the corresponding period.