Butler bullish on defence, areospace

Stating that the stage has been set for more outsourcing in engineering and design space to India, Edward M Kopko, chairman and chief executive officer of US-based Butler International Inc, however, said the company was going slow with regard to India operations due to lack of talent.

The company, a provider of techoutsourcing in high-profile areas like aircraft design besides defence and telecommunications, hopes to increase the contribution of its Indian operations located in Hyderabad to 8 per cent of its total revenues from the current 2 per cent in the next few years.

Butler's revenues last year stood at $322 million registering a year-on-year growth of 14-15 per cent in the last couple of years.

The company is currently focusing on Indian defence and civilian aerospace. "We are also establishing relationships with companies like the one we forged with Bangalore-based Cades Digitech, the people with smaller capabilities, to gear up for the upcoming opportunities in aerospace," Kopko told the media here on Wednesday.

Butler sees a manifold increase in engineering and designing activities in the country helped by the offset clause put forward by the Indian defence establishment, which says suppliers of military equipment including aircraft need to invest up to 50 per cent of the contract value in India along with its intention to improve its military capabilities.

The company's US customers include Lockheed Martin, which is already gearing up to meet the Indian defence requirements by supplying more advanced combat aircraft among others.

"While this takes one to two years to translate into business opportunity, the civilian airline space offers us immediate opportunities," the chairman said, stating that there would be a huge demand for engineering talent in aerospace in the next five years in India.

The company is ramping up its engineering and technology development facility in Hyderabad to double the current engineering manpower to 700 in the next 18 months.