Orient to hard sell Talisma products in Gulf market

Thursday, 26 February 2004, 20:30 IST
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BANGALORE: Orient Information Technology Ltd., one of India's leading IT firms, Wednesday entered into a pact with global customer relationship management (CRM) major Talisma Corporation to jointly service the Gulf region. With over a decade's presence in the Gulf, the Mumbai-based Orient has been offering its solutions and services to about 40 customers in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Of the total active client base, Orient will be targeting 15-20 customers in telecom, banking and financial services, utilities and consumer electronics to hard sell Talisma's suite of CRM solutions. "After the US, the cash-rich Gulf region has been the fastest growing market with IT spending remaining high even during the downtime," Orient chairman Ketan Sheth told reporters here. "With increasing purchasing power and higher per capita income in the region, the services sector has been upgrading its IT facilities to meet the growing customer demands." Talisma CRM solutions offer a compelling alternative to traditional sales, marketing and service point solutions. By integrating the power of e-mail marketing, chat, real-time collaboration and telephony applications with analytics and an integrated system-wide knowledge base, organizations can capture all customer interactions on real-time basis. "The CRM market in the Gulf region is about $10 million annually and is projected to touch $90 million by 2008. With Dubai emerging as a financial hub of the region, the demand for CRM solutions in banking and insurance segments will be exponential," Sheth stated. According to Talisma president Dan Vetras, Orient's reach in the Gulf market would enable the company to establish a stronghold in the region and replicate its success achieved in the sub-continent across verticals. "We see a great potential to generate $2-5 million business in the Gulf region by partnering with Orient to market our CRM solutions," Vetras affirmed. The dynamics of the Gulf economy is driven more by the distribution channels than manufacturing. The demand for customer-centric products and solutions is greater than in the original equipment manufacturing (OEM) sector. Apart from deploying Talisma's CRM solutions and providing after-sales support, Orient will offer value added services to its customers for enhancing productivity and reducing their operational costs. "We expect CRM solutions to contribute about 10 percent revenue to our business from the Gulf market, which constitutes 65 percent of the company's total turnover," Sheth claimed. The listed company posted a revenue of Rs 690 million during the first 9 months of the current fiscal (2003-04) as against Rs 700 million ($17 million) at the end of the preceding fiscal (2002-03). Orient also plans to target a dozen customers this year spanning verticals such as airlines, utilities, transportation, and hospitality to usher in the CRM revolution in the Gulf region.
Source: IANS
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