QuEST for success and winning partnership

Maintaining standards in systems, process must in engineering outsourcing

Engineering services outsourcing from advanced countries to India seems to be increasing rapidly. It is not only because of the huge and ever-increasing pool of engineers and the cost of tasks like design, testing and analysis being less than half that in the West, but also because of the technical proficiency and ability to partner the world's leading companies.

For this, companies have to maintain standards in their systems and processes on a par with that of the world's major companies.

Arvind Melligeri, president of $28 million Quality Engineering and Software Technologies (QuEST), says although companies outsource to concentrate on their core business processes, leading companies like GE, Rolls-Royce will look for standards as well.

QuEST delivers engineering solutions for advanced technology products in areas like aerospace, automotives, power, and oil and gas. QuEST recently scored a major hit by floating a joint venture with Rolls-Royce for outsourced engineering design work.

"We had to spend 18 months with Rolls-Royce before they chose us and during that period the investment was by us and this required a lot of sustaining power," says Melligere.

Another core requirement for the companies to partner global manufacturing giants is good communication between the company outsourcing and Indian service provider. Design and intellectual property rights implications are also key factors.

Melligeri says that at present India is deficient in product knowledge compared to what US and European companies have and the greatest challenge for any company which aims to work with global giants is to win the confidence of customers by maintaining standards in the systems and processes.

The global engineering outsourcing opportunity is estimated at $7-12 billion. Of this India located vendors, both captive and third party, account for only $200-500 million. Given the small base, Indian firms in this space were growing fast, QuEST currently clocking about 35-40 per cent annually.

Melligere added the company aims to become "a company supporting development of end-to-end products" and also plans to grow in embedded systems. For this, the "company will not mind growing inorganically."