Zensar Ropes In Mnc Allies In Spread Plan

Zensar Technologies, a joint venture between the RPG Group and the UK-based ICL, has joined hands with unnamed Australian and a Japanese company for setting up offshore development centres (ODCs) at its Pune facility. These companies are expected to together contribute $2 million per year over three years to Zensar's revenues.

The tie-ups are part of Zensar's expansion plan for the Asia-Pacific region.

The ODCs will also add to the offshore development and support centres the company currently runs for Cisco and Sprint (both in the US); Transco and P&O Nedlloyd (Europe); and Fujitsu (Japan).

"We have expanded our Asia business by nearly 50 per cent in the first nine months of this fiscal with new clients such as Credit Suisse Private Banking, Nittan and Hewlett-Packard in Singapore, Investec and IBM in South Africa and new partners and customers in Dubai. Bagging these contracts will make this year an excellent one for the entire Asia-Pacific segment," said Aamod Wagh, Zensar's vice-president for Australasia, China and Middle East-Africa.

The company has already won projects from Microsoft Portugal, MAV Hungarian Railways, Tranzgas Romania, ICL Milan and NICE Finland to supplement its presence in the UK.

According to Ganesh Natarajan, deputy chairman and managing director of the company, "We are pleased with the transition the company has made from a predominantly onsite and technology-driven company to a strong offshore services provider. The revival of the US markets and our success worldwide have set us on a good customer acquisition track that will lead to strong revenues and profit growth in 2002-03."

Zensar recently reported consolidated global profits of Rs 12.6 crore on net sales of Rs 138.7 crore for the nine months ended December 31, 2001.

While the US operations have accounted for 51 per cent of the revenues, Europe accounts for 29 per cent with the rest of the world operations contributing 20 per cent.