i-flex to open center in Eastern Europe
By agencies   |   Saturday, 19 March 2005, 20:30 IST
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BANGALORE:Banking and financial software maker i-flex Solutions will set up a development center in Eastern Europe for its services business. Though the company is yet to finalize the location, the center will be operational by next year and will employ 200 persons. This will be the third overseas development center for PrimeSourcing, the services division of i-flex. i-flex at present has a development-cum-disaster recovery center in Singapore and a near-shore center in the US, dedicated for its services business. He added the facility would accommodate a couple of hundred developers. The company is yet to finalize the location for the center, said V. Shankar, Executive Vice-President and head of PrimeSourcing, the services division of i-flex. The proposed center in Eastern Europe is expected to help the company to overcome bottlenecks such as visa restrictions among others even as PrimeSourcing gears up for an aggressive growth, Shankar said. "We decided on this region as cost is not a differentiating factor between India and Eastern Europe when compared to the US. Moreover, we plan to tap the local skill base through this center," he added. A majority of the employees for the development center would be hired from the local populace, Shankar said, adding the company would initially relocate some of its mid-level managers. PrimeSourcing at present has an employee headcount of about 2,500 drawn from some 17 nationalities. i-flex's services business offers customized application development, reengineering and maintenance, consultancy, testing and production support and system integration services through various on-site/offshore delivery models. The services business, which is growing at around 70 per cent on an annualized basis, accounts for 39 per cent of the company's total revenues. Recently, i-flex appointed ComputerLand SA as a privileged partner in Poland, Central and Eastern Europe for sales and implementation of its flagship core-banking product suite Flexcube in 16 countries including Russia, Baltic Republic and Ukraine. In December last year, the company had announced its plans to set up a product development facility in Moscow.

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