On aerial ladder

MEET YOUR ENTREPRENEUR/RAJU REDDY

When his company bagged a big deal related to Oracle application management services from a $10 billion US-based chemical manufacturer recently, it was the happiest moment in the life of Raju Reddy, the founder and CEO of Sierra Atlantic.

Though bagging a project after facing stiff competition from global majors was not new to the company, the reason for Reddy's jubilation is notable as the win was against two formidable contenders - the city-based IT major Satyam Computer Services and the second finalist Tata Consultancy Services.

"We competed with the best in the fray and went on to win the deal because we were big enough to compete with giants and credible too," says the 44-year-old Reddy.

Winning that multi-million dollar contract coincided with the decennial celebrations of Sierra Atlantic, which was founded by Raju Reddy way back in 1993. After serving Intel for a decade, Reddy left the IT major and started his entrepreneurial journey with the setting up of Sierra.

"It was my desire to reconnect with India, and my personal conviction in what I saw a phenomenal opportunity in offshore outsourcing," says Reddy on the reasons for his decision to branch out on his own.

After completing a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science in 1981, Reddy left for US to pursue master of science degree in computers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

He joined Intel in 1984 and headed some exciting projects related to the development of Pentium processors.

Before bidding adieu to Intel in 1993, Reddy was involved in the strategic marketing for the global giant, and sold the idea of offshore development to the management team of Intel.

This resulted in Intel assigning its first offshore project to Wipro in 1991, which, according to Reddy, was also the first major project for Wipro.

The project related to development of an operating system, porting, validation and compilers for some of Intel's new processors during that period.

"I left Intel with a reasonable cash cushion, which accrued from my savings," reminisces Reddy. Since inception, his company, Sierra Atlantic, focussed on the enterprise application services.

For Reddy, his Bits Pilany buddy Sarath Sura's Optima Software came in handy for offshoring Sierra's works to India.

Later, Sierra picked up equity stake in Optima Software and when the IT industry was facing a rough weather, the latter bought back the shares from the general public, as a result of which Optima became a fully-owned subsidiary of Sierra Atlantic.

At a time when the IT industry was witnessing a boom phase in 1999, Reddy raised a $ 17.4 million venture funding for Sierra. Three US-based major venture capital firms - GE Capital, Walden International and NEA - funded the company.

"The VCs are a happy lot now as the company, which was a mere 50-people in strength when they funded, now has a workforce of 500," says Reddy, brimming with pride and joy.

Reddy is now confident of his company becoming one of the top three global brands to emerge from Hyderabad, the other two being Satyam and Dr Reddy's Laboratories.

"Two years hereafter, we will become a 1,000-plus people organisation and the third big brand from Hyderabad," he reiterates.

With all the leading enterprise application vendors including Agile, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Siebel endorsing the company's efforts by appointing it as a reseller or as preferred partner, Reddy's vision may come true.