Unisys looking up at Indian skies

May set up service centre at Hyderabad by 2006

Unisys, an IT services and solutions company, is eyeing the Indian aviation sector to render its services. This apart, it is looking at Hyderabad as a potential destination to set up its second service centre in India by 2006.

At present, Unisys has a global service centre in Bangalore and provides hardware and software services to the aviation sector. Besides, it also offers services to banking, insurance, telecom and government sectors.

With various airports in cities like Mumbai and Delhi being modernised and new airports coming up in cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore, Unisys sees a 'sizeable market' in India for its services.

"We not only provide services in networking but also solutions for passenger booking, cargo management and departure control," Mukul Agrawal, managing director of Unisys Global Services (India), said.

Unisys holds one-third of the global marketshare in this sector. In the US and UK, Unisys also supplies modules for e-ticketing.

"We are, therefore, looking at grabbing a good chunk of orders from various airports in India in this regard. This apart, with the opening up of the Indian skies, we are also looking at rendering our services to different airlines in terms of hardware and software solutions," Agrawal added. Air India is one of Unisys' clients in India.

Unisys' other clients in India include State Bank of India and ICICI bank.

It provides solutions with regard to cheque processing and treasury management to these banks. "Banking is another sector that has a huge market potential for us in India," he said.

Unisys' employs 200 staff of its own at its Bangalore centre. The company also has sales offices in Mumbai and Delhi. Its upcoming centre may either be of the same size as the one in Bangalore or even bigger.

"In the next two-three years, we are planning to increase our headcount to 4,500 and the new centre, therefore, is likely to have a capacity of more than 1,000 people. The new centre may either replicate the services of the existing centre in Bangalore or specialise by being either BPO-centric or software-centric. We will be taking a decision on this by the end of 2005," Agrawal said.

"Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata are some of the cities that we are looking at to set up the new centre," he added.

On whether the company would look at an acquisition in the Indian market for future growth, Agrawal said that acquisition would be a "potential option for growth".

The company had earlier announced that it would be investing $180 million in India over a period of five years.