HEADLINES
JOBS
COM:PORT
POLICY POLICE
ARCHIVES

Satyam adopts US accounting practise

Over the past year, it has undertaken a programme to strengthen its internal support units, a factor, which has resulted in it lagging behind other software companies, B Ramalinga Raju, chairman, SCSL, claimed.

T O D A Y

• The World Wide Wait • Iridium's India plan • Satyam opts for GAPP • MTNL can go cellular

While SCSL's subsidiaries have a stock option programme, the company does not have one for itself. Raju did not comment on the possibility of its introduction either.

He said that SCSL's relative weakness in its internal support units is the cause for its scrip quoting lower than the share price of its competitors. Among the areas, which will be strengthened, would be HR processes, part of which involves giving employees stock options.

SCSL's subsidiary, Satyam Infoway, will undertake a Rs 360-million expansion programme, which will involve setting up networks linking 25 cities using leased lines.

While five metros have already been linked, secondary metros will follow in the next six months, Raju said.

This forms part of SCSL's programme to become the first independent service provider for electronic mail.

Of the Rs 360 million investment planned, Rs 220 million would be in the form of debt from domestic financial institutions and the balance through equity. A decision on the equity component would be taken in the next five months, he said.

With networks slated to be the high growth area, Raju said Satyam Infoway's strategic alliance with the US-based CompuServe allowed it a competitive advantage for Web-based solutions.

The Pune Software Development Centre, set up at an investment of Rs 80 million, will upgrade its existing facilities by getting a 64 KBPS satellite link to Japan by January 1998, and another 64 KBPS link with the US, taking the total to three 64 KBPS lines from one centre.

The setting up of the SDC is aimed at enhancing exports, Anil Kekre, senior vice-president and head, SDC, said. He added that upgradation of infrastructure would cost another Rs 80 million.

SCSL, which gets 32 per cent of its revenue from the Y2K programme, uses this as an entry point to a client's business.

Officials admitted that the euro, the currency of the European Union, and the change of telephone numbers in the US would be the next large businesses.

SCSL's efforts at reaching world-class quality standards involve securing Level 3 of the Software Engineering Institute of the US-based Carnegie Mellon University's Capability Maturity Model development by December 1998.

Earlier: Infosys switches to US bookkeeping methods. Will others follow?

- Compiled from the Indian media

Tell us what you think of this story