Outsourcing2India, December 26, 2006

A Q & A feedback from Vishal Grover, President & CEO of SYSTIME. Vishal reveals SYSTIME's core strength and strategic growth plans worldwide.

Service offerings across Industry.
SYSTIME delivers high quality business and technology solutions in the areas of ERP, CRM, Business Intelligence, Business Integration, Infrastructure Management, Process and Quality, Testing and Validation, and Retail - Point-of-Sale (POS). Our solution offering is enhanced by strategic alliances with leading business and technology organizations in the world. We have a well established global presence to successfully serve hundreds of customers across varied industries.

Brief your expertise in offering ERP Solutions for global customers.
SYSTIME has been named the ‘Oracle JD Edwards Partner of the Year, 2007’. This is testimony to the fact that we provide high quality ERP solutions to our customers. Over the past 12 years, we have built up strong practices in areas of Oracle, JD Edwards and SAP. SYSTIME is the third largest Oracle-JD Edwards (EnterpriseOne and World) practice in the world, with 450+ experienced and trained JD Edwards consultants. Additionally, we have been a service provider to Oracle-JD Edwards corporate in Denver for EnterpriseOne. All this goes to prove our profound expertise in implementing ERP solutions across all major companies.

Our ERP Implementation and customer facing requirements are executed onsite whereas other activities, which do not require customer interface, are carried-out offshore. This gives a lot of benefits to our customers in terms of scalability, skill sets, cost advantage, ramp-up and ramp-down of resources as well as round-the- clock support.

Instances of how you built up a value chain for a specific solution / process.
In today’s world, customers are looking for strategic partnerships with chosen few solution providers, who focus on providing high value services to address their critical business needs. SYSTIME has moved up the value chain by providing not just an ERP solution, but more comprehensive and business oriented solutions. Our commitment is to help organizations achieve their business objectives through the innovative delivery of solutions and processes.

Our end-to-end solutions, range from identifying the hardware requirements and sourcing it to implementing ERP, network services as well as all Business Intelligence solutions. Based on customers’ requirements, we provide facilities - such as Data center, Hosting mechanisms and many more - leveraging from the collaborations we have with various leading technology organizations.

For many of our customers, we have implemented the store front solution in the front end and integrated it with JD Edwards at the backend. We have also implemented VersaPOS (POS product) for a customer in the front end and
JD Edwards as the backend with seamless integration. For some customers, we have implemented Cognos (Business Intelligence solution) on top of the JD Edwards application, for analysis and report generation. This goes to prove that we are truly a one-stop-shop for all the customers’ business and technology needs.

Brief… Your evolving global delivery model.
Our global delivery model is a mature model that utilizes our onsite, near-shore, and outsourcing capabilities for executing global projects. It is an optimized delivery model, which is very agile and suits the ever-changing needs of our global customers.

Our model is based on the robust SYS-on-TIME™ methodology, which emphasizes the need for pre-defined processes and consistency of approach. This methodology has assisted in considerably reducing project execution timelines and is the cornerstone of making our projects successful. Communication processes, distributed project management, and engagement teams for each location enable effective utilization of global and local competencies and resources. Basically it is a result-oriented solution/model that churns out both quantitative and qualitative benefits.

Our model is truly compliant. When I say compliant, it signifies that we keep enhancing our SYS-on-TIME™ methodology based on our past project experiences and regional implementation scenarios; this enables us to adapt to customer specific situations. We also keep evolving our model regularly, to address the specific needs of customers’ by striking the right balance in choosing our services onsite, near-shore or offshore.

Advantages of your Offshore / Onshore / Nearshore locations ( USA, Europe and Asia Pacific perspective) if any...How do you leverage each location ....client perspective!
We are present in major regions such as USA, Europe, ME, Asia Pacific and are constantly expanding our regional operations. Our global presence, with state-of-the-art development centers, guarantees timely and quality delivery of services outsourced. We use the right combination of onsite-offshore-nearshore capabilities that gives the customers flexibility to choose an option that fits their requirement.

Cultural and linguistic capabilities provided by our regional offices are another plus! SYSTIME does not have to get acquainted with the culture each time as we have our people operating locally (regional teams). This gives tremendous edge to the customer and offers the advantage of similar time zones and physical proximity. Additionally, each region has its own regional requirements in terms of process. We as a company have the capability to adapt to these cultures, the knowledge to understand the regional law of the land and provide the right solution to the customer.

From an offshore perspective, all our offerings (solutions) are designed on offshore-onsite capabilities. Our offshore center has profound knowledge capability and is agile enough to provide support to the various regions. SYSTIME is one amongst very few companies who provide offshoring capability with regional support. Moreover all our regional offices are development centers and not merely sales offices. This is another benefit, where our consultants operate locally to cater to the local customer. It is in tune with our business mantra of Global Presence – Local Delivery!

Specific nearshore/onsite support offered for your clients overseas and you find them crucial to build up a long term relationship.
To our global customers we successfully provide on-demand services using a combination of our nearshore-onsite capabilities. On-demand services could be support services or could be ad hoc emergency requirements. Basically as and when the customer requires our service, we are geared-up to execute the project. Our nearshore/onsite support provides customers with the flexibility to match their operating needs with our wide-ranging services. If the project is ongoing, then we provide services from our offshore center.

How do your adhere to stringent quality norms in all your projects… and brief on how they have been boosting up your business prospects?
The accolades from our customers would not have been possible but for our stringent quality consciousness. At SYSTIME we believe that both an organization and its people bring true value-add to its customers. In view of this, we encourage our employees to arm themselves with necessary qualifications and certifications. Most of our consultants hold product certifications, relating to their technologies. JD Edwards consultants are primed with JD Edwards certification, whereas Oracle consultants are Oracle certified. Project managers are PMP certified; all these certifications further qualifies us to address the on demand needs of customer and improve operational efficiency. We also have functional experts who belong to various certified bodies, such as Institute of Chartered Accountants, APICS (The Association for Operations Management).

List of major clients in US, Europe and Asia Pacific.
We have a long track record of serving many customers across all industries. Industries include Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Direct Selling, Entertainment, Financial Services, Food & Beverage, Hi-Tech, Life Sciences, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas and Pulp & Paper.

Where do you feel your competitive strength is concentrated on..      which drives your growth!
Our customers can get the most out of their Information Systems investment with SYSTIME as their business partner. Our ability to consistently deliver high-quality services globally through our field-proven process and methodologies and high level of domain knowledge, is our key strength. Customers today not only look at cost advantage; they primarily need a business partner who can adapt to their changing business. We believe our strength lies in our ability to respond to changes swiftly and economically…the constantly changing business landscape, ever increasing global competition and mounting customer expectations, we have the bandwidth to address of all these challenges!

We also offer our customers the much required flexibility, through our ability to ramp up and ramp down resources, adapting to their processes and methodologies and round the clock support. We truly live up to our tag line…Business Agility.On Demand, providing customers the agility…As you need it, when you need it!

How do you plan to position yourself in Asia Pacific over the next 5 years in ERP Solution space?
We are already the largest Oracle-JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and World practice in Asia Pacific.

From an ERP marketing standpoint, all major companies have been operating from a global perspective, all these years. It is only now that they are looking towards bringing their ERP to Asia Pacific operations. A lot of business that SYSTIME does today is for the Asia Pacific operations of global multinationals. Companies are headquartered in USA, but we are executing ERP operations for their Asia Pacific offices. Asian market is now booming; this has put a lot of purchasing power for these companies.

Oracle also has realized the key significance of the JD Edwards product line and has a very strategic plan for Asia Pacific market. We are working very closely with Oracle to be a part of the Oracle partner ecosystem.

In the next five years, we see a huge potential in Asia Pacific. Business arising from Asia Pacific may get equal to the business coming from the West. We are ramping up our Singapore operations to address the ever-increasing market needs. We also have plans to open a Global Delivery Center in Singapore, to be able to service all customer requirements around Asia Pacific.

SYSTIME is all braced up to meet the business requirements of tomorrow!

How important are SLAs in your firm's relationship with your clients and How much are you engaged in a client's outsourcing plan?
Outsourcing starts on a smaller percentage then keeps growing. Our business with our customers has grown on a maturity model, which includes three stages. The first stage is the Utility stage – wherein the customer has a need and we meet their requirements at a regional level. The next is the Enhancement stage where we partner with the customer and provide more opportunities to service, on a global basis. The final stage, the Frontier stage is when the customer has gained considerable confidence in us and leverages our competencies to help him meet his strategic objectives. Here, we chart out a plan for the customer, and identify the core and non-core activities. This helps him concentrate on his core competencies, while we focus on his other requirements. We infact provide solutions, which help customers do outsourcing better.

Many a times the outsourced functions are not central to a company's business but become vital to remain competitive in the global landscape. This is where SYSTIME bridges the gap and becomes a part and parcel of the customers planning cycle. We help our customers focus on their core competencies, by charting out a detailed outsourcing plan and expand their business value chain.

Answering the subject on Service Level Agreement (SLA), we consider SLA’s to be the starting point – the very basic minimum of the requirements that satisfies the client. Our aim is to surpass our clients expectations – every time, all the time. We perhaps have better-defined SLA norms/Statement-of-Work that go beyond the industry standard and delve into the smallest of details. We have an award winning methodology which provides Review, Report and Refine mechanisms to address all SLA needs of customers. However, as I said before, a company cannot get such a high share of repeat customers by just delivering on the SLA. We consistently strive to go well beyond the levels of service that is expected from us. That is in our culture as an organization.

Advantages of being located in India.
India , undoubtedly offers many advantages and there exists real momentum here! Technically skilled resources, qualified manpower, high quality standards, large pool of English speaking professionals, less cost, strong understanding of diverse cultures, stable democracy and economic growth and the list can go on and on. Moreover, reliable satellite and submarine communication links facilitate good broadband connectivity with the rest of the world. Having said this, I must caution that most of us should not take this considerable lead that India enjoys as granted. Several countries in the world are competing hard and now – more than ever – we need the Indian work ethic and entrepreneurship. SYSTIME is all geared to address the global needs; we have plans to set-up our operations in China and Latin America and provide equal or more advantages as we provide in India.

When India is leveraging its strength and location to become a global outsourcing hub, How  SYSTIME plans to evolve itself in the new and globally competitive environment?
I’m sure all of us agree that the world is changing at a very fast speed. At SYSTIME, we recognize that change is constant and invest heavily on things that are key to success in such times: careful planning, precise execution, adaptability and agility. It is necessary to evolve with the changing economy and as the needs of the marketplace evolve, so do our strategies and services. Some of these include internal assessment, strategic direction, performance evaluation, scenario-based planning, broader infrastructure and many more offerings. Moreover, today we see a rising global demand for the Infrastructure Management Services, which is a specialized field. SYSTIME leverages from its parent company, the CMS Group, who is a leading player providing a wide gamut of infrastructure management services to Fortune 500 companies in India. SYSTIME is all set to capture the global market and establish yet another distinctive identity in this field.

We welcome the challenges the changing times bring to us – our ability to capitalize on such opportunities has been the key to our success. Ironically, the key to success in these modern times are old fashioned values: service, character, quality, and value. As long as we don’t lose sight of these, I’m confident that we will continue to succeed.