Polaris targets doubling of revenues by '07

Polaris Software Ltd (Polaris) expects its revenues from product sales to touch $100 million by 2007 which is nearly a two-fold increase from its current total revenues.

"We have started positioning our software products more aggressively and should make a few announcements in the next couple of quarters about partnering with key companies to market our banking software products," said Govind Singhal, executive director and member of the board, Polaris.

The company has announced recently the signing of deals with two London-based banking majors to implement Intellect suite, its core banking software solution, which is targetted at both corporate and consumer segments.

"Our investments in software product development will increase in proportion to the revenues earned from product sales. We shall also have regular upgrades and new version releases of our products including the Intellect software suite annually," added Singhal.

The company plans on leveraging its current global relationships with distributors, partnerships and software services client base to market its software product suites.

The recent strategic alliance between CTG, the US-based IT services company, and Polaris to provide software solutions to banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) clients in the United States and Europe is a step towards providing clients with a best-shore IT services solution.

"This relationship is primarily targetted at mid-tier companies having apprehension about outsourcing as they envisage a significant investment in manpower to manage the whole exercise. CTG will act as the front-end to this whole alliance encouraging companies to outsource as they trust a local player," remarked Singhal.

Polaris is betting on this alliance to deploy IT solutions faster, be more responsive and circumvent issues such as HI-B visa restrictions.

"The CTG-Polaris alliance is expected to touch $100 million in revenues in the next three years making it a very important partnership for us. Even though there is no binding agreement, we shall use this opportunity to market Intellect suite through this alliance," predicted Singhal.

The company, which recently begun advertising on television to promote Intellect suite, has plans to take its advertising outside India and into key markets soon.

The company expects its current headcount of 5,200 to touch 7,000-8,000 employees in the next three years.