Manugistics to invest $75 million in India

Plans to up headcount to 300 at its Hyderabad centre

Manugistics Group, Inc, a provider of synchronised supply chain and revenue management solutions, will be investing $75 million in India over the next 10 years. The $193-million company, which currently employs 162 people at its development centre in Hyderabad, plans to up the headcount to 300 in the next 18 months.

Addressing the media on the occasion of its first anniversary in India, Joe Cowan, chief executive officer of Manugistics, said, "There had been a downturn and our company had not been making money for some time. However, we recently had two quarters of positive EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) at $4.6 million and $4.7 million and three quarters of positive cash flow from operations."

The company now plans to invest $75 million in India over the next 10 years in employees and capital resources. Manugistics has a solution development centre in Hyderabad that is responsible for full life-cycle product development of supply chain management, logistics and revenue management solutions.

This implies that the centre works on the product right from its conceptualisation and design to its coding and delivery. Manugistics has around 53 products in the global market.

According to Salil Joshi, vice-president and managing director of Manugistics India, the company is creating a centre of supply chain excellence in India and has installed a base for engineering support as well.

"As Manugistics grows, we will be ramping up our client support functions to move to application consulting services as well," he added.

"We are 162 people in Hyderabad at present and expect to touch the 200-mark by early 2006. In 18 months, we intend to have an employee strength of 300," Joshi said.

The company has more than 800 enterprise-level customers and is also in talks with a few low-cost airlines for its revenue management and optimisation solutions. In India, it has no client-base as yet.