Spotlight

360 degree IT

UBICS, the IT arm of the UB Group, has entered India with plans for world-class R&D and product development. The company is targeting the communication product segment and the airline industry’s IT needs. By Kushal Shah

UBICS, a UB Group promoted IT products and services company that was founded in 1993 in the US set up shop in India in 2005 with an R&D center. Founded by Vijay Mallya and Sunil Patil, UBICS India is headquartered in Pune. It has offices in New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai. Globally, it is headquartered in Pittsburg, US and is listed on the NYSE.

The IT arm of the $5 billion UB Group started its Indian operations with an investment of about $1 million on setting up an R&D hub for the company. “Our aim for India was to get global technology in the country and establish India as the R&D hub of the world. Our investment in R&D here will enable us to innovate and deliver the best to our customers,” said Sunil Patil, President-Global Operations, UBICS. The company offers its services to diversified sectors including aviation, manufacturing, processing, banking, financing, retail, automotive, insurance, transportation, telecommunications, public utilities, entertainment and consumer goods. With an enviable list of clients, many of whom are in the Fortune 1000, the company’s revenues stand at around $20.5 million.

Access all areas

UBICS has ventured into all possible areas of IT. The company calls it IT 360, and includes five elements, namely, consulting, products, offshoring, BPO/KPO and project services, which can solve most IT-related problems. According to UBICS, this 360 degree IT approach optimizes the utilization of resources such as talent, language skills and infrastructure, reduces fixed costs by service rationalization, increases transactional capability by virtualization, reduces time to market by leveraging on existing applications especially in the software-as-a-service mode and solves business demands by having a consultative approach in assessment and blueprinting of IT strategies.

A part of the 360 degree offering, consulting, plays an important role for IT organizations these days. UBICS consulting operates in the domains of Web Services/XML Development, business process re-engineering, e-commerce/Internet-based application development, client/server design and development, package implementation and customization, network engineering, and applications maintenance. Offshoring and project services deliver application development services to cater to ERP implementation, maintenance & support; custom bespoke applications; enterprise application; product development and infrastructure management. In terms of product development they have two products—the Enterprise Recruitment Automation solution and a software-based video communication solution.

A focus on airlines

“For UBICS, that distinction of importance goes to airline IT and back office services and IT products based on intellectual property,” stated Patil. The growing airline industry and the group’s own Kingfisher Airlines, certainly puts this area front and center. Along with this, the increasing focus on R&D in India and demand for new products in the marketplace has encouraged UBICS to come up with products, its own IP. As mentioned earlier, it has entered the market with two major products—Enterprise Recruitment Automation (ERA) solution and software-based video communication solution.

ERA is a solution that expedites recruitment. It is a Web-based, recruiting and resourcing automation platform that ensures speedy resume entry, coupled with powerful search, intelligent resume screening, applicant tracking and team collaboration. Next in line is its flagship product, SeeItFirst—a software-based video communication solution, which has Variable Bandwidth Processor (VBP) and supports the transmission of video via the Internet on low bandwidth connections. This makes it special in its category and can be useful for countries like India which are short of bandwidth, but where the demand for remote meetings exist. This product has an European patent. The benefits of this product have been visible in one of the largest universities in India, the University of Mumbai. The varsity has started using SeeItFirst for its distance learning programs, with the purpose of extending classroom experiences to all of its students across the country.

Hiring technical expertise

Running R&D operations and delivering services to global majors requires the right manpower with talent and experience. The company hires engineering graduates and MBAs with skills that can add value to the technology market. UBICS manages these 360 degree activities with the help of about 550 employees from various backgrounds. Talking about the work culture, Patil pointed out, “In our organization, performance metrics are in line with growth opportunities and employees get the advantage of contributing to one of the fastest growing companies. Using this talent, we see our Indian R&D as an engine for growth and delivering IP-based products to the world.”

This all round approach to various IT tasks, backed by one of the biggest names in corporate India, will certainly help UBICS make a name for itself in the Indian IT market, which is filled with innumerable players offering a variety of services.

kushal.shah@expressindia.com