Aegis sets up subsidiary

 Aegis, the business process outsourcing (BPO) arm of Essar group, has set up an independent subsidiary called Aegis Tech, to mark its foray into the infrastructure management space. The company plans to invest $100 million (around Rs 480 crore) in this venture over the next 12 months.

The business unit will be headed by S K Jha, president of Aegis Tech. It will provide end-to-end, customised solutions in voice & data, networking, unified communications, managed services, info security and remote infrastructure management areas. These will be available in the form of services. Aparup Sengupta, Managing Director and Global CEO of Aegis, said that a majority of existing clients of Aegis have shown an interest.

“This has been the result of client demand and what we saw as an opportunity which we could tap. Clients are looking to reduce their capex and these services bring that capability to the fore. With this, we will bring infrastructure management in a service form and will encompass formats like software-as-a-service, pay-as-you-go and others. In the next 18 months, we are hoping to touch a revenue of at least $100 million.”

With these services, Aegis Tech will compete with IT biggies like Wipro and HCL Technologies in the domestic space as well as with global giants like IBM and HP, among others. The recent Nasscom-McKinsey Perspective 2020 report noted that 40 per cent of future opportunities will come from remote infrastructure management services, or RIM, which will have an addressable market of $160-170 billion in 2020. The addressable domestic market is expected to expand five-fold by 2020 to $90-100 billion.