SumTotal to make Hyd unit its strategic hub

Implementation work to be shifted from Europe to India

California-based SumTotal Systems Inc, a business performance and learning technology solutions provider, has decided to turn its India development centre in Hyderabad into a hub for product services, research and development (R&D) and implementation works.

R Andrew Eckert, chief executive officer of SumTotal Systems, told Business Standard that as part of the growth plan of the company the implementation work being done in Europe would be shifted to India.

"The implementation work is being done by around 15 third-party vendors and now this activity would be shifted to India in phases," he said.

This was felt necessary as the company would like to directly attend the customers' needs instead of routing them to third-party vendors. "Besides taking up these new works, the Hyderabad centre would continue to carry out the global marketing operations of the company," he said.

Eckert said that shifting major operations to the India centre would also be economically viable for the company.

"The development centre in India is critical for the growth of the company. We would also be increasing the head count in India to 250 from the current 150 during the current fiscal," he said.

On the geographic distribution of its revenues, Eckert said that Europe was contributing around 25 per cent of the company's total business. The company has 150 clients in Europe.

SumTotal sees a huge potential for growth in the e-learning space as there are very few prominent players. The company which has a base of 650 clients is expanding its operations to Japan and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Indian centre would carry out implementation, product marketing, engineering and development activities in this region as well.

SumTotal expects its turnover to cross $67 million during the current financial year. "We expect to get around 35-40 per cent of our total business from the non-North American companies," Eckert said.

The company is now gearing up to launch the 7.0 version of its enterprise suite and expects it to expand its corporate client base.

"We expect more customers to join as it provides eight business performance management applications to enable companies to adapt to changes and align people across the extended enterprise," Eckert said.

SumTotal integrates SAP's enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions and the HR of PeopleSoft with its products to make it more vibrant for corporates.

According to him, the learning technology is now being widely viewed as a critical mission in organisations, be it for the launch of a new product, increasing customer base, accelerating sales force or educating distributed workforce.

"E-learning is among the top three priorities in the overall information technology (IT) spending among the major corporates in the world," he said.

"The company's quality of service, products and skills in implementation work will ensure that we become the leader in the $250 million e-learning market space," he added.