ValueLabs plans Rs 200-crore SEZ in Hyderabad

SEZ to be set up in two phases of 500,000 sft office space each, completion within 5 years

ValueLabs, a Hyderabad-based business technology solutions provider, is in the process of setting up a special economic zone (SEZ) at Kokapet on the city outskirts with an investment of around Rs 200 crore to funded through internal accruals, according to Ram Manjeri, senior vice-president (sales and marketing).

“We have already acquired seven acre of private land. The SEZ will be developed in two phases with each phase comprising 500,000 sft of office space, and will be completed within the next five years,” he told Business Standard.

The SEZ is part of ValueLabs’ plans to step up its focus on newer business areas and almost treble its headcount to 10,000 in the next three to four years. At present, the debt-free company has one own campus and two leased facilities in Hyderabad, with a seating capacity of 4,500, besides a 200-seater facility in Chennai and one centre in Kuala Lumpur housing close to 100 professional.
 

Plans are afoot to open a 100-seater facility in Bangalore, which should be up and running by the end of this financial year, Manjeri said.

Stating that ValueLabs was morphing from a services-driven firm into a solutions-led company, he said it had identified seven areas – digital, healthcare, infrastructure services, quality assurance, business application services (BAS), marketing opps and banking – where it was investing big time in terms of people.

“Instead of going and acquiring companies, we are acquiring teams. The new teams for each of these seven proposed business units will join us this year and we will be ready to go to the market from next year,” he said.

While the US contributes close to 65 per cent to the privately-held company’s revenues, Asia-Pacific, Europe and West Asia account for 10 per cent, 20 per cent and around four per cent respectively.

To a query on whether the company has any plans to go in for an initial public offering (IPO), Manjeri replied in the negative. "We have been growing at a reasonable year-on-year growth of 25 per cent. If we execute well on our strategy, we could treble our revenue run rate in the next three years," he said.

According to him, India, a progressive market in terms of adopting new technologies, is also one geography that ValueLabs is planning to look at. “We will start using an outcome-based pricing model in India once our solutions mature,” Manjeri added.