Microland: Where change is the buzzword

1989 was the year when Microland embarked upon the first chapter of a fascinating story. It has gone through many transitions and revamped its business model to suit shifting market conditions. Today, with its foray into IT infrastructure services, Microland is enjoying a resurgence, says Abhinav Singh

Microland is ready to exploit the IT Infrastructure business and expects it to mature further in a big way by mid-2005, says Pradeep Kar

Bangalore-based Microland has re-invented itself time and again. Guided by mastermind Pradeep Kar, it has changed its business model to suit prevailing market conditions over the years. The company started off as a systems integrator with a focus on the domestic market, and then transformed itself into an Internet holding company. Then it got into the services business with a focus on the global software services market, only to transform itself in the past 18 months into a provider of offshore managed infrastructure, ITeS helpdesk and tech support services.

Bullish on remote management infrastructure services

With HR and infrastructure in place to remotely manage IT infrastructure of clients across the world, Microland is bullish on this market. Pradeep Kar, chairman and managing director, Microland says, “IT infrastructure management services will be a mainstream service by 2005 and we have enormous talent to tap this huge market. We have had six quarters of consecutive growth ever since we started focusing into this business.” The company has doubled its manpower in the last two years, from 540 to 1,000 today.

Microland has an impressive client list for its remote management services, including IDBI Bank, Blue Dart, Standard Chartered Bank, Heinz, Procter & Gamble, Al Rajhi Bank and Bharat Petroleum. Microland recently bagged a contract to manage the entire IT infrastructure of one of the largest Islamic banks in the Middle-East, with has 470 branches. It is earning 70 percent of its revenues from the global market and 30 percent from the domestic market. It provides product-based support services to end-customers of six clients. Within tech-based support, the company specialises in computing and wireless products (wireless interface cards and wireless access points). The company has divided its service offerings into Platinum, Gold and Silver packages with different levels of service to go along with the same. This service-as-a-product approach has already taken off and is being offered to many clients.

Coming up, a centre of excellence with Microsoft

Microland has joined hands with Microsoft to start a centre of excellence in Bangalore that will shortly start operating in three areas—active directory, messaging and the Microsoft Windows operating system. Suresh Raman, vice-president, marketing at Microland says, “The centre of excellence will help us stay ahead in technology and in testing, validating and piloting solutions before applying them to a customer’s IT infrastructure.” Microland has assigned a dedicated team to this centre.

Stressing on quality standards

Since its foray into the IT infrastructure space, Microland’s appetite for quality standards has grown. It has adopted Infrastructure Technologies Information Libraries (ITIL), which is a set of standards for IT infrastructure management companies. It has also been running a Six Sigma practice for the last one-and-a-half years with a continuous focus on improvement. Microland has taken the help of QAI India in adopting Six Sigma practices and has one black belt and 25 green belts in its fold. Besides this, the company has adopted the BS-7799 security standard and it

has a Customer Operations Performance Centre (COPC) practice for streamlining technology-based support services. Raman says, “The adoption of such quality standards has helped Microland in structuring, aligning and benchmarking our services against international standards and competition. It has also helped us sustain efficiency and productivity.”

Many SMEs are looking forward to outsource their IT infrastructure management and they can prove to be an immense potential market for Microland in the years to come, says Suresh Raman

Challenges in the global market

Microland started addressing the global market after having focused on the domestic market all along. Raman says, “To convince international customers of our capability was a challenge. As part of our strategy we always run a pilot for our customers as the risk of impact is much lower at that stage.” Microland recently appointed Pradip Madan as its president for worldwide sales. He will drive sales abroad, especially in the US. The company has expanded by taking up a larger office in Detroit, US and it plans to open offices in Europe in the near term.

Looking ahead

Microland plans to invest further to expand its physical infrastructure. Kar says, “We are scaling up rapidly and expect our revenues to grow by 50 percent annually. We are ready to exploit the IT infrastructure business and expect it to mature further in a big way by mid-2005.” Recruitment continues as the company starts to focus on the SME segment. Raman says, “Many SMEs are looking forward to outsource their IT infrastructure management and they can prove to be an immense potential market for Microland in the years to come.” The company also plans to invest in network management tools and instruments to provide better IT infrastructure services and also in CRM for improving customer relations.

Once again, things are looking bright for Microland. The company has managed to pull off some amazing transitions. With this company, only one thing is certain—tomorrow will be a different ballgame. Today its IT infrastructure management services are doing well and 2004 will see Microland bring out the heavy artillery as it zeroes in on this segment.

Long standing partnership with technology organisations
Partner	Nature of partnership
British Standards Institute	For BS-7799/ISO 17799 as an Associate Consultant
Check Point	Consulting and a Support Partner
Cisco Systems	Professional Services Partner
Microsoft	Gold Certified Partner
Sun Microsystems	Sun iPlanet Integration Partner.

abhinav@expresscomputeronline.com