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Tata Infotech in US, Europe thrust Business Standard - Feb 20, 2002

Tata Infotech is one of the leading information technology companies within the Tata group and one of the pioneers in systems integration, software development and education services in India. Nirmal Jain, managing director, spoke to Savio G Pinto on the company's initiatives in the e-learning space and other business aspects.

Why is e-learning an area of opportunity for Tata Infotech?
A lot of industries, for example insurance, are coming up which require trained resources but are not immediately available. These could be in the area of sales, support or other functions.

The challenge is to build these resources immediately. Traditional method of learning will not be able to fulfill these requirements at the pact at which it is needed. This is where we come in.

So then are you catering to corporates by providing training skills in a fast-track manner?
While we do provide corporates the facilities of putting in place trained resources to suit their requirements, our expertise and skills go much further.

We help clients set up strategic objectives in terms of the technological areas that they have to gear up to. The need today is being driven from a strategic standpoint as opposed to an operational standpoint earlier.

We get customers to identify what they would be doing over the next one year or so and what trained resources they would need in place.

So in effect we go a step backwards and visualise the needs much before they are actually needed operationally, provide requisite training, participate in actual implementation with constant monitoring and finally do an evaluation to see if the desired objectives are being met.

Tata Infotech has been going through a rough patch. What measures have you taken to tide over this?
The IT industry has been going through trying times and we are no exception to this. However we have acknowledged the situation and resorted to measures to come out of this phase.

One is, of course, belt-tightening measures. Further, we are laying emphasis on marketing not only in the US but also new markets in Europe.

How is your Japan foray faring?
At present, the performance there is not up to our expectations and we feel there is scope for improvement. However, we have decided to concentrate more on developing business opportunities here.

Will Tata Infotech get relegated to the background when Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) goes public?
While TCS no doubt is a much larger entity with a huge business, Tata Infotech is a company wherein the Tatas have a 76 per cent stake. As for the implications of TCS' public issue, one will have to wait and watch.