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November 19, 1997

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Ashok Leyland Information gets aggressive

Ashok Leyland Information Technology Limited will pursue the merger and acquisition route aggressively for growth.

ALIT is already in talks with two software firms for a possible take over and things are at an advanced stage, said Executive Chairman Y P Sahni.

The Hinduja group company will also, in the next three years, consolidate its position in the software industry and is aiming for a slot among the top 10.

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ALIT will also, at a later stage, become a subsidiary of a global group company owned by the Hindujas and according to Sahni will seek listing on the NASDAQ.

The company is mulling over the possibility of introducing employee stock option, though details are yet to be worked out.

The company will also, for the first time, tie up with global business partners of Hindujas in countries other than UK and US.

"The Hinduja group has business partners spread across the globe and we hope to cash in on that by setting up joint ventures with them. India is currently a favourite location for software outsourcing and we will use this advantage to the hilt," said Sahni.

The joint ventures are being planned in Italy, Germany, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia and France. "Our partners will be global majors. We are already in talks with Fiat of Italy and Lufthansa of Germany," said Sahni.

Meanwhile, the company has effected an organisational revamp. It has decided to adopt a three dimensional matrix structure for administration, said Sahni. The three matrices, according to him, will be projects, line of business and technology.

The company has also decided to wind up some of the existing units and redeploy staff into a common pool. The projects division will continue to execute orders and aggressively bid for fresh ones.

However, the main activities will be in the line of business division. The emphasis of this division is to create specialists. The banking and insurance divisions will be the key areas for growth Sahni said.

"As the economy opens up further, these two divisions will see the maximum growth and investments. With their growth there will be also be a need for specialised IT services. Our aim is to cash in on these and be among the top-rung companies," said Sahni.

ALIT is currently in tie-ups with two foreign firms for the banking and manufacturing sector. The first tie-up is with the UK-based Midas Kapiti for the Equation 3 or Kapiti Software for banks. Equation 3 is rated as one of the best banking software in the world and according to Sahni this is best reflected by the fact that most of the private banks have already adopted it as their working platform.

Banks like IndusInd, Times and Centurion are already using our software. We are also in talks with Global Trust and others for the same.

Here our intention is not to be just a software provider but a complete solutions provider? The software will run on an IBM AS/400 platform and we will be possible for the networking also, added the ALIT executive chairman.

The second agreement is with the Holland-based Baan for providing integrated solutions for the manufacturing sector. The software will be able to track the manufacturing process in its entirety, right from the orders, delivery, movement stages etc, said Sahni.

Telecom is another key area where the company has decided to pool its resources. Cellular services will remain the key area in this sector as the Hindujas have already bagged the cellular licence for Gujarat.

"Client-care, provisioning, billing are some of the services we plan to unveil soon," he claimed. Internet and entertainment will be the other areas that the line of business division will look into.

The company intends to be one of the private providers of Internet and is currently looking into the modalities of providing the same.

Also on the anvil are hi-tech animation studios for the entertainment sector. The line of business division will be staffed by people from the common pool of talent, apart from the group heads. Each entity will be treated as a separate unit and will function independently.

The third axis - technology - will function as the core of the group. The responsibility of this section will be to create specialists in specific technologies and also function as a watchdog.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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