Yokogawa Local Arm Is Group Software Sourcing Centre

The $3 billion Yokogawa Electric Corporation of Japan has chosen its Indian arm Yokogawa Blue Star (YBSL) as its global sourcing partner for software solutions for the entire group. YBSL is an Indo-Japanse venture of Yokogawa, Japan and Blue Star Ltd, India.

As part of this global elevation', YBSL has signed agreements with Yokogawa, Japan's US based venture Johnson Yokogawa and Yokogawa Europe known as YKS.

Besides these two, the Indian company has also a working tie-up with YAS (Yokogawa Asia, Singapore) for offering software solutions in the South-East Asian region.

Capitalising on this, YBSL has further decided to enter the global software business in a big way by signing a techno-commercial agreement with the US based Software Management Specialisation (SMS) company for developing solutions in the field of Year 2000' problem.

 

By offering software solutions to Yokogawa's worldwide ventures, numbering around 48, YBSL is eyeing a significant share of the Japanese major's global software business estimated around $600 million last year.

The company expects its software business to grow faster than its core business of process control technology which is limited only to the Indian market.

Yokogawa is expected to get orders for YBSL in the US and European markets. This follows last year's identification of Yokogawa Blue Star as Yokogawa, Japan's `global engineering centre' ."We'll develop both commercial and process control software for export market," K Bhushan, managing director, YBSL, said. So far, the Indian company developed solutions mainly for the Japanese company's internal needs. YBSL has set up a separate software division in Bangalore's Electronic Park where it plans to appoint 300 software engineers by the year end.

It has so far invested Rs 5 crore in this facility which is spread over five acres. The division will be known as Yokogawa Software Technology Park India.

Its existing facility in Bangalore primarily consists of precision instrument control systems.

Yokogawa's global business in measurement instruments, process automation and information management system required considerable software solutions and the parent company felt

India's leverage in software expertise could be tapped better by involving its Indian venture, Bhushan said.

The company is expecting a turnover of Rs 150 crore for the year ended March 31, 1997, as against Rs 114 crore during 1995-96. As its entry into commercial software business is set to take off, it expects its percentage of revenue from software to grow multifold in the coming years.