Spotlight

Sourcing through IT

Renuka Vembu looks at ITSource, a company that focuses on providing infrastructure management solutions and services to large and mid-sized organizations

Pradeep Bhangale and Prachi Bhangale promoted ITSource in 1998, to provide an array of technology solutions and services to a vast customer base. It offers IT infrastructure solutions, Infrastructure Management Services (IMS), training services and Resource Process Outsourcing (RPO). The founders brought in two decades of experience in technology and enterprise IT infrastructure management, and were actively involved in implementing, managing and providing consulting services to companies on complex IT infrastructure. Today it has a pan-Indian presence in Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Gurgaon, Kolkata, Patna, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Raipur, Varanasi, Agra and Akola.

In the beginning

Pradeep Bhangale, MD, ITSource India, stated, “The most stimulating factor in entrepreneurship is undertaking the challenging journey to give shape to one’s vision of building a large, globally talented organization. In this case, in addition to experience in the IT industry, we could foresee the tremendous potential of the IT services industry and the gap between customer expectations and the demands being met by service providers, the exponential demand of trained IT professionals, and successfully envision the dynamism of the Indian IT software and services landscape.”

Running the company in its nascent stages was a tough challenge, but the duo soon learnt from their setbacks, and marched ahead realigning the business model, resolutely pursuing their objectives. They worked with dedication, aimed at providing high value to their customers, which included some large companies.

Business engagements

ITSource engages with global, large and medium enterprises and service providers to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) through a combination of onsite, offsite and remote services. Organizations have collaborated with it for business-to-business, business-to-consumer, e-commerce and corporate internal environments. Working with the global industry players in technology, ITSource is in the process of delivering strategic, personalized, end-to-end solutions with quality, value and commitment to total customer satisfaction.

The organization has its portfolio of products and services for SBUs classified into four broad categories:

• Infrastructure Management Solutions
• Infrastructure Management Services
• Resource Process Outsourcing (RPO)
• Training services
• Infrastructure management solutions: In the rapidly changing corporate world and technological advancements, new products emerge from the market adding to the already existing product range, so that customers can dabble with a wider choice. ITSource makes the job easier for customers by assisting them. It has a specialist team that helps customers access problems and designs a scalable solution for uninterruptible computing. The company advises and assists its customers in selecting the right technology or product and designing a solution for the same.

Bhangale said, “We lead with expertise instead of just products. We offer solutions that leverage the power of collaboration by bringing together people, ideas and relationships. Having partnered with the major technology companies, we address the requirements of all business verticals in India.”

ITSource helps manufacturing companies set up their IT infrastructure, thereby providing optimum availability and support to their ERP system or SCM solution. They also offer solutions for mission critical, high transaction processing environments to companies operating in the BFSI segment. The company helps the government to integrate IT in creating citizen-centric services.

• Infrastructure Management Services: The company aims at creating new business processes and innovative models to help customers gain new levels of efficiency, differentiation and flexibility. Their robust service offering provides dynamic solutions to ensure processes for proactive problem solving approach even before they can manifest and affect business performance.

ITSource has adapted to the best practices framework like ISO 9001-2000 and ITIL across their organization. This ensures a consistent service delivery with high standards to clients around the globe and facilitates the scalability of operations. It also ensures people-independent service delivery. Bhangale asserted, “Our service delivery models are dedicated to ensure the high availability of the customer’s IT infrastructure and applications. From assuring the customer of the highest quality processes, we pr ovide the flexibility to choose or upgrade from any of the service delivery models. We also offer various service delivery models based on customer requirements.”

• Facilities management services: These act as a single point of contact for all hardware and software needs of customers. The company’s team of engineers helps clients to optimize resources through well-defined processes and practices.
• Enterprise management: The company provides advice and guidance on where to concentrate efforts to reap the maximum benefit. It scopes, designs and deploys state-of-the-art enterprise management solutions using ITIL best practices. It works closely with the customers and aligns their business processes to IT for maximum benefits.
• Remote Management Services (RMS): ITSource’s RMS ensures that companies have full internal control of their IT investment and existing infrastructure, while outsourcing the day-to-day management and monitoring of their infrastructure, such as desktop management, server management, operating system, network management database management and application layer.
• Resource Process Outsourcing (RPO): ITSource’s RPO provides strategic accountability and ownership of acquiring, building and sustaining resources. The process moves the right candidates quickly through the hiring and training process. This is a culmination of its technical team, innovative processes, power of creativity and state-of-the-art technology. Understanding customer requirements and meeting the service delivery deadline at the shortest possible time is what ITSource aims to achieve. Some of the companies that have used its RPO services are Reliance, Avaya Global Connect Siemens, HP, Wipro, etc.

Training services

In order to leverage its expertise in IT infrastructure management, three years back the company set up a training division for students and professionals. Today, ITSource has 12 company-owned centers in Mumbai and Pune, and collaborated operations across the country. Bhangale asserted, “Our strong research orientation has helped us to continuously innovate in the areas of instructional design methodologies and curricula development. Its customers design and approve these courses. Through strategic alliances with global leaders such as Comptia, Prometric and Microsoft, we work as a crucial link between individuals and organizations by providing IT skills resources. This helps our students gain the latest learning and professional accreditations in the industry.”

Future vision

ITSource breeds an environment and workforce that spreads vibrancy, empowers employees, and is non-hierarchical. The thrust is on taking ownership for actions and result based compensation. They plan to scale up their service delivery to more than 100 locations across the country from the existing 25 in the next two years. They will continue to enhance their service offering through global partners in IT infrastructure domain, and are moving up the value chain. ITSource is looking to setup a 50-seat state-of-the-art Network Operating Center (NOC) for their Remote Management Service offering. It also intends to scale-up its existing 20 training center base to 75 training centers in India, and expand operations in international markets like China, UAE, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka over the course of the next three years.

With 1,400 employees, the company is set to grow at CAGR of 70% for the next four years. By 2012, it is looking at revenues of Rs. 5,350 million; the target is around Rs 850-900 million for 2008-09.

renuka.vembu@expressindia.com