Unfazed by the recent fiasco over a deal in Indonesia, Polaris Software is firming up its expansion plans, which includes setting up a development centre in Hyderabad in the next three months.
"We will set up a development centre in Hyderabad in the next three months," Arun Jain, chairman, Polaris Software Labs said, adding that the proposal would be placed before the company board meeting soon for approval.
Polaris has three development centres as of now in the country -- Chennai, Gurgaon and Noida.
He said new investments would be made only in 2004-05 and added no major investment would be required in 2003-04 fiscal and the funding for the proposed Hyderabad centre would be met internally.
On the international front, Polaris is also planning to enter the Beneloux (Luxemberg, Netherland and Belgium) where the company has no presence as yet.
"We have not decided exactly when we would be entering that region but we will surely enter that part of Europe and will first set up a sales operation", Jain said.
Polaris is also keen to enter the Chinese market by setting up a development centre. The centre would be used for catering to the Japanese market, he said.
The Japanese operation where Polaris is serving to clients like Hitachi and NEC is also growing, he added.
"In fact, had the Indonesian incident not happened, we would have gone ahead with our plans of setting up a development centre there by June 2003," he said.
"However, after our Indonesian experience, we would be also examining the risk factors before entering into any of the developing countries," he said.
"China development centre is most likely to come up this year," Jain said.
In Europe, the company has a development centre in UK and its sales office in Frankfurt is getting converted into a development facility.
"The purpose behind the conversion is to serve our five major clients -- two large insurance companies and three banks in Germany -- he said, adding the current strength of the office is six and after the conversion into a development centre, it would have 50 people at the centre.
The company has a major operation in Singapore with 150 people and a smaller operation in Hong Kong.
