Thaindian News

By James Jose
Hyderabad, Sep 10 (IANS) Business software major CA Technologies is looking to focus on growth areas like telecom and defence, and ramp up headcount by about 900 people in the next 3-5 years, said top company executives.

“We have added new verticals in our portfolio. We had a 50 percent growth in revenues last year and are targeting another 50 percent during the current year,” Amit Chatterjee, CA’s India managing director, told reporters at the its research and development (R&D) facility here.

The company, which employs 1,600 people at its R&D facility — India Technology Centre, said it would be scaling up the total headcount to about 2,500 within the next 3-5 years.

“Hiring would depend upon the direction in which our business grows. But in the next 3-5 years we are hopeful of increasing it to 2,500,” said Sanket Atal, who was recently appointed senior vice president at the centre.

Prior to joining CA, Atal was the vice president of R&D at Oracle Corp and headed the India operations at the Oracle product development organisation.

CA Technologies, formerly called Computer Associates, said it develops about 30 percent of the company’s global products at its Hyderabad facility.

CA is currently concentrating on five industry verticals in the Indian market — telecom, government, defence, banking and financial services (BFSI) and IT/IT enabled services (ITES).

About 38 percent of its revenues last year were from the IT and ITES sector, while BFSI contributes about 27 percent. Projects done for central and state governments contribute about 28 percent.

Though the share of telecom sector in the company’s revenues is a modest 4 percent, it expects this to rise robustly following the roll-out of 3G and Broadband Wireless Access services.

Another big focus areas is defence. Though its share in the revenue pie is at 3 percent, the company believes the sector holds huge potential.

“Defence projects take a very long time to come through. But once they do, one project can change the entire ball game,” said Chatterjee.

The company has made a spree of acquisitions since June 2009 and has marked $500 million globally for fuelling expansion of its product portfolio through the inorganic route.

“We will continue with our build and buy strategy and will look at opportunities which give us an advantage and widen our offerings,” said William Bauman, who co-heads the India Technology Centre until his term ends in January.