HEADLINES
JOBS
DISCUSS
POLICY POLICE
ARCHIVES

Sonata's US venture turns around

The subsidiary at San Leantro, on the West Coast of US, which has been making losses ever since its incorporation almost four and half years ago, is likely to post a marginal profit on a turnover of $8 million during October to December last year.

T O D A Y

• Tata Teleservices • Sonata does well in US • STPI ties up with CMG • Pentafour results

Sonata Software Managing Director B Ramaswamy has said the company does not need any kind of boosts through further investment and hopes that it would go from strength to strength from here. "We hope from now on it can stand alone as a profitable venture," he said.

Sonata has taken over reins of the US arm recently by buying 46 per cent stake in company at a consideration of $7,000 from the Indian Organic Chemicals Limited, which set up the same.

"The subsidiary is expected to show an improvement in its performance since it would be undertaking large-scale projects in US," he said. The thrust areas of the arm would be consulting, datawarehousing projects, Internet and related business and enterprise resource planning.

The projects taken up by the subsidiary abroad will be executed in India by the parent company for a fee. Sonata has set goals like sustained growth, streamlining changes in the IT environment and becoming a state of the art company while its overseas subsidiary is also expected to undergo significant changes. Sonata has a growth target of 60 per cent for the next few years and a target of Rs 2 billion by 1999-2000.

Other overseas ventures will be in Japan and Germany, two key markets, says Ramaswamy. The company's revenue from its international operations has been on the rise and will account for 50 per cent of the turnover this year.

It is targeting a turnover of Rs 2 billion by 2000 and a growth of over 60 per cent for the next couple of years.

Ramaswamy said the company's growth plans involve a software development centre to be set up at Bangalore's Keonics technology park and another facility close to its Bull Temple Road offshore development centre.

He, however, ruled out another public or global issue for at least three years as "we have collected enough funds for our growth plans, on which we should now concentrate."

Sonata is focused on high-growth segments like product development, ERP and consulting. It has tie-ups with Microsoft, Oracle, Lotus, Scala, IBM and Symantec.

The company was incorporated almost 12 years ago. Sonata has recorded a compounded annual growth rate of 50 per cent for the past three years.

NASSCOM ranks the company among the top 20 software companies in the country. Sonata has high employee ownership via structured employee stock option plan.

The staff holding now stands at 23 per cent after the public issue. The company was recently listed on exchanges across the country.

- Compiled from the Indian media

Tell us what you think