The OPD Player For SMEs Date:   Wednesday , July 06, 2011 When Sureshram Venghatachari and Vallinayagam Nallaperumal quit their high profile jobs in 2008, they were determined to build a company that could make a dent into growing IT services market. With the Indian IT industry growing pillar to pillar and dominated majorly by large players, both decided to bring their expertise and start a company focused on the Outsourced Product Development sector. With a passion to foster entrepreneurship and create a company with a robust foundation of values, the duo founded Calibrainz Technologies. Headquartered in Bangalore, Calibrainz Technologies offers specialized product development services across a wide spectrum of technologies and works closely with clients as their technology partner. “With several large players like Persistent, Symphony Services and others already crowding the OPD market, there is a large chunk that has already been taken by them. But we are not in competition with them when it comes to the target clientele,” says Venghatachari. The company’s core focus is to offer OPD services to startups and SME/SMBs. “It is a common belief that outsourcing model is ideal only for large companies. On the contrary there are several startups doing cutting edge work and looking to outsource a part of their technology development work and these are the people we target. The goal of Calibrainz Technologies is to help more startups & small and medium sized companies to reap the benefits of this model,” explains Nallaperumal. A startup needs a specialized focus and this is what Calibrainz provides. With a strong team of 30, who are expert on an array of technical skills, Calibrainz not only helps bridge the gap between business and technology but also in identifying the right technology for a specific client's needs, keeping in mind the basic guiding principle of providing a good technology solution at the least possible total cost of ownership for the client. OPD Offerings The company is sensitive to the fact that the requirements, expectations & dynamics of outsourcing / offshoring software development and QA activities are unique to each company. To facilitate each company to leverage this model, without having to compromise on their requirements and expectations, Calibrainz offers a range of options to choose from — Incubation Service, Product Development on a Build, Operate & Transfer (BOT) basis, Project Based Development, Sustenance Engineering, Consulting & Project Management Services, Robust High Performance Distributed Java J2EE Platform Engineering, and Application Performance Testing and Tuning Services. Since cost is a critical factor for a startup, the company is flexible in offering varied cost models to its customers, who have the freedom to choose what suits them the best. But what sets the company unique is in its engagement with its customers. Instead of just maintaining a transactional relationship with its clients where they do just the work outsourced, Calibrainz instead takes the role of a consultant wherein it works with each of its clients on a one to one basis to understand the nitty-gritty of the business, the type of solution required and through a complete analysis suggests the ideal solution for their business challenges. Irrespective of the type of technology or architecture that needs to be deployed, Calibrainz team personally takes the effort to make the process as simple as possible for the clients. Additionally, the company’s focus for the Indian market is to work as a technology partner with small and medium sized manufacturing companies in their information technology initiatives. Calibrainz helps them leverage on the use of appropriate technology for their business needs and improving their business processes. Its service offerings as a technology partner include Technology Status Assessment, Building a Technology Roadmap, Standardization and Integration of Existing Applications, Development of New Applications for Business Needs, Building a Real Time Performance Management System, and Managed IT Services. Calibrainz works very closely with its customers as a highly reliable technology partner, providing the required technology expertise and taking complete ownership of their information technology initiatives. This helps the target companies to focus on their core competence and use their internal resources more effectively for achieving their business goals. The edge in new age technologies and unique engagement models has helped Calibrainz identify a crucial market in the OPD space. It decided to follow a different route, which is developing products with new age technology for SMEs by engaging the corporate strategic initiatives and taking an idea or a concept and making it into a reality. The credibility in churning out successful companies and expertise in the new age technology has emerged as their biggest strengths in attracting clients in the OPD market. “There is a huge market for new age technology in OPD, and studies reveal it to be a whopping $20 billion industry globally,” says Venghatachari. From our experience we have learnt that the key to success for offshore operations is having a quality team. At Calibrainz there is a strong team of technologists who have been hand picked and trained in a myriad of technologies over the last three years. Calibrainz is always looking to add the best possible talent to the team of software engineers to meet the business growth needs. Calibrainz offers a technically challenging and intellectually stimulating work atmosphere, combined with an attractive remuneration package, to attract the best minds in the industry. As part of its employee benefits program, Calibrainz identifies software engineers with a good potential and offers them fast-track growth opportunities with appropriate training. The team is the fundamental strength of the company and it ensures there is enough time and resource spent in nurturing them. “Having started the company in the wake of recession, there came a point when there was a need to downsize our staff. Instead, we decided to train them in new age technologies and other business skills, so that when the economy picked up, we were ready to meet customer demands,” says Nallaperumal. Today the company is going strong with more than 10 customers and has touched a multi-million revenue in a few short years. With business going gung-ho, it is now looking at expanding its team and touch 50 member mark by the end of this year. With emerging verticals like industrial automation, healthcare, aerospace and defense projected to drive the next league of growth, OPD market in India is expected to touch $13.1 billion this year, registering a growth of 11.4 percent over last year. With such a strong forecast, the future looks promising for Calibrainz Technologies and given their past performances, the years ahead project nothing but a hockey stick growth.