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Spotlight
An Indian biometric pioneer
Setup in 1991, Tutis Technologies has grown into a Rs 53
crore company, with a focus on biometric solutions and related services. By
Varun Aggarwal
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 "Tutis
has functional expertise in BPO, KPO, BFSI, ITeS, defense and intelligence
organizations and the services sector"
- Aniket Jathar
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Tutis Technologies Limited was incorporated in September 1991
as Amex Computers and Services Private Limited. Later, in April 1995, the name
was changed to Amex Information Technologies Limited. This, in October 2006,
became Tutis Technologies Limited (Tutis). Tutis is a Latin word that means
secured. The name Tutis was adopted as the company decided to focus its business
development on biometrics software and hardware, and its software products were
already named as Tutis.
The company was founded by G S Chandrashekar. He is currently the Chairman and
MD of the Tutis Group of Companies. The present promoters of the company are
G S Chandrashekar and Aniket Jathar. Listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, Tutis
went public through an initial public offer in August 1999. It was a big moment
when the company came into the limelight.
Services subsidiaries
The company launched a biometric division in 2003. Tutis has two other subsidiaries
in India—Vishal Information Technologies and Basiz Fund Accounting Services.
“Tutis and its subsidiaries are not in complementary business models and
each company is into different businesses within the ambit of the information
technology industry,” said Aniket Jathar, Director, Tutis Technologies.
Vishal Information Technologies was started in 2001 and is a provider of IT-enabled
services. From a humble beginning at a 3,000 sq ft office with 30 employees
in its first year, VITL has grown into a multi-faceted $8 million ITeS company
occupying 15,000 sq ft of office space in Mumbai and Chennai. It employs 190
professionals and operates through a channel of 800 contract employees who cater
exclusively to VITL’s internal need. VITL has developed its expertise in
the areas of data digitization, e–publishing, digital library and print
on-demand.
Basiz Fund Accounting Services was started in January 2006. It is in the business
of Fund Accounting, which is a back-office function that begins once a trade
is struck and ends when information is sent to investors or broker dealers.
The services cover uploads, trade validation, trade processing and valuations,
maintenance, quarterly activities and annual activities. Most of Basiz’s
clients are significant hedge funds.
| Project |
Project for |
Solution |
Purpose |
| Mapping Project |
SEBI and
NSDL |
High-end, large area, FBI-compliant fingerprint
devices along with software. Deployed across India & UAE at more than 300
centers. |
Used to create a database
of investors as per SEBI guidelines. Data for more than a million users
has been captured. |
| Employee database |
NASSCOM |
High-end, large area, FBI-compliant fingerprint
devices along with software. |
Used by NASSCOM to create an employee
database that currently hosts more than five million registrations. |
| Computerization of Land
& Revenue Department |
IGR |
Fingerprint-based solution |
Used for capturing fingerprint data in
property transactions replacing the age-old, traditional ink pad. Deployed
across India at 2,000 locations registering approximately 1 lakh fingerprint
captures every day. The system has been in use for the last five years. |
| Computerization of Land
Records & Settlement Commissioner - e-Governance |
Land Record and Settlement
Commissioner |
Fingerprint-based solution
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Used by the designated authority to commit
land transfer documents. Deployed across 750 locations; approximately 35,000
transactions mutated per month for the past five years |
| Driving license |
State Transport Department |
Capturing Biometric Identity
of license holder and storing it on a smart card |
To store and validate driver information
through a biometric smart card being provided as the driver's license. It
helps in instant and accurate information retrieval of the license holder. |
Growing steadily
For the last seven years, Tutis Technologies has been among the leading providers
of biometric products and solutions in India. It is a pioneer in the field of
biometric software solutions, card-based solutions and devices.
The early years saw Tutis grow rapidly as it added products from global leaders
such as Siemens and CMS Computers to its client portfolio. Tutis also constantly
endeavored to enrich its product portfolio and added several biometric products,
including iGuard, to its list.
Jathar said, “Tutis aims at introducing not just technological innovations
but a range of products to customize and redefine workspaces through the best
office automation and security solutions. It has a range of biometric products
and software solutions with a wide spectrum of functionality, interoperability
and flexibility for customization.”
With advances in technology Tutis has made major progress in the field of identity
recognition based on fingerprints, smart cards, RFID and even retina scanning.
“Tutis has a functional expertise in several industries, especially BPO,
KPO, BFSI, ITeS, defense and intelligence organizations and the services sector,”
he added.
Tutis currently caters to all these industries with customized and flexible
biometric solutions for physical and logical employee-presence tracking and
monitoring, time attendance and access control. “These end-to-end biometric
solutions are ideal for both large and small enterprises and can be used to
simplify processes like payroll calculation and also make them user friendly,”
Jathar explained.
Tutis Biometric functions globally; it is headquartered in Mumbai, India, with
offices in the UK and UAE.
It has an impressive list of clients across the globe, including corporate giants
Siemens, Wipro-Dubai, Emirates Group and ETA Ascon Group.
| 1999 |
Started the Biometric division as a value-added
reseller for biometric automation devices imported from China and USA. |
| 2000 |
Established strategic partnership-based
business model with Cross Match Technologies and SecuGen Corp, USA. |
| 2000 |
The company successfully completed a
large-scale project for the Government of Maharashtra for fingerprint-based
Stamp Duty and Registration automation process for property transactions. |
| 2001 |
It made a strategic alliance with Lucky
Technologies for their Time-Attendance device-iGuard. |
| 2002 |
Carried out a project on fingerprint-based
automation for employee monitoring and exporting the data for payroll calculations
in a large pharmaceutical MNC. |
| 2003 |
The company established strategic alliances
with leading biometric companies and strengthened existing relations through
a series of aggressive media campaigns and visibility initiatives. |
| 2005 |
It developed and launched its own security
software Tutis Biometric Logon in Desktop as well as Enterprise versions.
This software has been accepted by both end-users as well as enterprises
with large networks. |
| 2005 |
The company submitted a proof of concept
and subsequently deployed Tutis Biometric Logon for a leading financial
institution for an online banking application. |
| 2006 |
It successfully deployed the Enterprise
version of Tutis Biometric Logon at a UK-based call center with over 400
clients and nine servers. |
| 2006 |
The company developed fingerprint matching
technology, Fingerpoint Ver 1.2, for applications written for the Microsoft
Windows platform. |
| 2006 |
It released an upgraded version of Tutis
Biometric Logon (TBL 2.0) with enhanced features like 'Cache Logon' and
more AFIDs. |
| 2007 |
Tutis Biometric Logon now supports Windows
Terminal Services. |
Biometric Division
The company’s Biometric Division is headed by Aniket Jathar and has been
divided into three departments—development, marketing, pre- and after-sales
support. The combined employee strength for all three departments is around
50. Jathar said, “Our Mumbai office is the nerve center for all three activities.
Licensing and e-mail support is also done from Mumbai. We have sales and support
offices in Chennai, London and Dubai. In India, we have a network of resellers
who provide installation support for our customers.”
The company is also planning to appoint software integrators in the Far East
to provide after-sales support for its Tutis Logon products.
Most significant project
The most ambitious and perhaps the most successful project for Tutis was the
development of Tutis Biometric Logon (TBL), a robust and scalable biometric
security software solution that employs fingerprint-based authentication for
desktop and domain log-on.
TBL runs on a Windows platform and replaces the conventional password-based
Windows login with a fingerprint login for both desktops and domains. The software
comes in two editions; Tutis Desktop Edition and the Tutis Enterprise Edition.
The software is being used in a diverse set industries and verticals, from banking
and finance to ITeS to defense and intelligence. TBL facilitates time management
for employees in large networks and BPOs where employee presence and movement
directly reflect productivity. It can also be customized for integration with
payroll software and can be used by managers to increase the efficiency of their
business and secure their data.
TBL supports SecuGen’s fingerprint scanner SecuGen Hamster III as well
as other scanning devices. SecuGen Hamster III is a compact fingerprint scanner
with USB connectivity. It is scratch-, impact-, vibration- and electrostatic
shock-resistant and comes with a three-year warranty.
varun.aggarwal@expressindia.com
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