One of the latest companies to establish itself in Dubai Airport Free Zone (Dafz) is Mahindra-British Telecom Limited (MBT), which was set up in July 2000.
The company, a major name among international information technology solution providers, was keen to establish a presence in the region and Dafz was the most appropriate place not only because of the investment-friendly atmosphere, but also because of the infrastructure support Dubai can offer to high-end IT companies, disclosed Madhur Kripal, manager, to Gulf Industry.
MBT is a joint venture between the British Telecommunications (BT) and India's Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M).
BT has recently committed a minimum assured business of £105 million ($158 million) spread over three years to MBT. Under the agreement, BT has guaranteed business worth at least £35 million each year for the period beginning current fiscal and extending up to March, 2003. This committed business provides the springboard for much higher levels of business with BT, feels MBT. The deal represents an increase of 66 per cent over the business of £63.15 million BT placed with MBT during the last three years.
"This landmark achievement for MBT further cements the strong ties between BT and the Mahindra Group and will create substantial value for the shareholders of MBT," says Ulhas Yargop, president, IT sector, Mahindra Group.
The increased business will largely come from organic growth in IT services now rendered by MBT to BT.
"We are delighted to play an increasingly important role as a preferred supplier in BT's global IT outsourcing strategy," said Kiran Deshpande, MBT CEO and managing director.
MBT's services to BT cover advanced communications engineering (ACE) and information systems engineering (ISE).
MBT was formed in 1987 with the Mahindra Group holding 60 per cent of the equity and BT holding 40 per cent which will change to 57:43 soon with BT increasing its share. Over the years, MBT has emerged as one of the leading software services companies in India, employing over 2,200 IT professionals.
MBT's focus earlier was more on the business side of telecom like billing rather than hardcore telecom technology. Thus it was a software services company servicing telecom clients rather than having the full domain knowledge of telecom sector. "So investments were made in R&D and developing several centres of excellence in technologies like network management systems, intelligent networks, mobile technologies, embedded software, etc. The investments are paying off. Today the centres of excellence have moved from R&D mode to actually procuring projects in those fields. As old areas get integrated into regular business new centres of excellence in new areas like optical networking will come into being," says Deshpande.
MBT today has diversified its client list and gains about 25 per cent of its revenue from non-BT clients. In this the thrust naturally is in the largest telecom markets - the US and then Western Europe, Santosh Madbhavi, who looks after business development in the US is very excited about prospects there. "The business is at a take-off stage," he says.
An interesting development in providing services in the US is acquiring stock in a client as part payment for services. While large telecom players definitely need high quality software services, the start-ups, which today dominate the Silicon Valley culture, do not have the revenues to pay for software development. Thus our development work for them is like venture investment since we are paid in stock. The risks are high but so are the rewards," adds he.
MBT services include turnkey software projects, development and maintenance of bespoke software solutions, product development, IT consultancy, software re-engineering, applications outsourcing, systems integration, facilities management, database conversion, private network solutions, internet-based development, business process re-engineering, QMS management and euro solutions.
The company's business expertise covers banking and financial services, utilities, manufacturing, trading and construction and of course telecom.
"Our offsite and offshore development centres at London and Mumbai, Pune, Colombo, respectively, offer the flexibility of project teams tailored to meet clients' requirements round-the-clock through services from different time-zones. We also have marketing offices in the US, UK, Denmark, South Africa, Oman and Sri Lanka to work closely with clients," says Deshpande.
