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IVL India to go global

Another Indian software company goes global. IVL India, a development centre based in Thiruvananthapuram and which works on mission critical applications on the SAP R/3 development platform is putting up a marketing wing on the western coast of the United States, probably in California. It also has plans to set up offices in south-east Asia.

IVL, itself a 100 per cent subsidiary of Informationsverarbeitung Leverkusen, GmbH of Germany, aims to tap the burgeoning market for

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SAP-based applications in the US, according to its director, Karl-Josef Errens. Operations are scheduled to begin in a month. According to company sources, it is the first home-grown SAP-based solutions provider in India to go global.

Early next year IVL intends to test the waters in South-East Asia, setting up office in Singapore. The expansion is partly intended to prevent job-hopping in the already short-staffed enterprise resource planning software business, in which SAP, AG, has a virtual monopoly. This way, says Errens, even those who want to emigrate can do so without leaving the company.

ERP software uses information across departments and locations in an organisation to help reach informed business decisions. The US market for ERP, estimated to be worth deutschemarks six billion and growing by 40- 60 per cent every year, has already surpassed Europe and has little competition. IVL India hopes to compete essentially in areas of project research and product development. The company also intends to team up with other companies and enter the implementation business. Details, though, are still to be worked out.

Errens said IVL India often received business queries from the US but the company had deferred a decision till a board meeting a few days ago. Now the IVL hopes to first open a small marketing office in California and then go on to setting up a developing and training centre there. The Thiruvananthapuram base will continue to take a major chunk of the cost-effective development business. Till its US office is set up, IVL India is working through a representative.

The company had recently expanded operations within India too, floating a domestic subsidiary, IVL Software Services, to cater to the market for SAP R/3-based applications in south India, particularly Kerala.

Incorporated in 1995, IVL India started commercial operations in April 1996. Key business areas include utility facilities, public organisations, communities, customised solutions and Internet- enabled applications.

Among IVL's solutions are the Companion, an Internet-based software to help users log into networks from laptops and access the customer without dialling up, and RDL, a rules-based language based on SAP that avoids the need for programmes to be rewritten.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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