Divestures not a trend; firms are no longer in distress.

While 97 new captive announcements were made in the last 12 months, only 10 captives were actually divested

Captives can triple their value on EBITDA basis by managing complete service lines and the demand for parent

They are much more effective in getting lower pricing in terms of contracting with third party providers

New Delhi, March 26

Offshore captive IT/BPO units that transition into mature roles such as governance of third party suppliers, and undertaking risk and demand management functions can become up to three times more valuable to their parent entity, according to Mr Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO of outsourcing advisory firm Everest Group.

Debunking the industry perception that the 2009 trend of captive divestures would continue, Everest has pointed out that against 97 new captive announcements in the last 12 months, only 10 captives were actually divested.

“Historically captives have been seen as a platform to reduce costs. But in this maturing environment, we can see that captives can potentially can triple their value on EBITDA basis by managing complete service lines and the demand (for parent), and by providing a vehicle to do vendor management of the third parties,” Mr Samuel told Business Line recently.

The first quarter of 2009 witnessed 20 new captive announcements and one divesture and the following quarter 27 new captives and one divesture. In the third quarter, against four captive divestures 28 new captives were established – an 18 month high.

Despite the few divestures announced in fourth quarter of 2009, Everest expects continued momentum in the market going forward.

Notable divestures

Some of the notable divesture announced recently include Cognizant Technology Solutions’ acquisition of UBS India Service Centre Pvt Ltd, the Hyderabad-based captive service provider to the Swiss UBS Group; EXL’s acquisition of the back-office centre of American Express Business Travel; and Integreon’s acquisition of Grail Research, the captive unit of the US-based management consulting firm, Monitor group. “For a while there, captives were being valued very highly and it made commercial sense if a company was in need of capital…Firms were in severe distress. The situation has changed now. The valuations have dropped precipitously and firms are no longer under significant distress,” the Everest CEO said.

Relook at strategy

This, in turn, has prompted companies to re-examine their strategy and look at the value creation.

Explaining the changing face of captives, he said that these units started off as a platform for labour arbitrage, but are now moving onto more complex functions right from offering expertise to build reciprocal operations in other geographies, to managing third party suppliers. Captives can advise parent organisations on how to optimise the sourcing programs and mitigate risk, in the process becoming a strategic partner to the parent.

Being an offshore unit themselves, captives are suitably placed to manage the dynamics of offshore sourcing, believes Everest.

“They are much more effective in getting lower pricing in terms of contracting with third party providers. They can become a hub in the ecosystem – so now not only are they doing work themselves but they are also managing third party ecosystems,” Mr Samuel said adding that hybrid models would gain traction as companies outsource part of the work to third parties and retain certain capabilities in-house at comparable price points.

Source: thehindubusinessline.com

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Cordiant Technologies, a leading India-based outsourced product development company, offers its second development unit, “Resource Lab for ISVs”, to exclusively service the large community of Independent Software Vendors worldwide.

(PRWEB) June 11, 2007 — Cordiant Technologies, a leading India-based outsourced product development company, offers its second development unit, “Resource Lab for ISVs”, to exclusively service the large community of Independent Software Vendors worldwide.

Located at the International Tech Park, which is along Chennai’s IT Corridor, Cordiant’s “Resource Lab for ISVs” is dedicated to providing a complete range of offshore services to ISVs.

The Lab is equipped with world-class hardware, software and communication infrastructure and is supported by facilities which include 3-tier power backup, ready pool of multiple Internet and telecommunication service providers and state-of-the-art security system.

“Over the past 4 years, Cordiant has been successfully providing high-quality offshore services to ISVs who own enterprise software products. Through our Resource Lab for ISVs, we cater to ISV offshore engagements that require dedicated India development teams, including on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model,” said Mr. Dennis Paul, President & CEO.

To know more about the services that Cordiant offers through its ‘Resource Lab for ISVs’, visit http://www.cordiant.com/ResourceLabforISVs.htm

About Cordiant Technologies

Founded in 1995, Cordiant Technologies builds globally aligned India teams for Independent Software Vendors worldwide. Cordiant has outsourced product development centers in Chennai and Kochi, Southern India; and a US subsidiary in Princeton, NJ.

For more information, call 609-375-2354 (US), +91-44-4266-6015 (India),
email: mktg@cordiant.com or visit http://www.cordiant.com

CONTACT: Manoj Gopalakrishnan of Cordiant Technologies, +91-994-019-6015 (India), manoj.g@cordiant.com

WEBSITE: www.cordiant.com

Independent Software Vendors from a wide range of domains like Corporate Compliance, Banking, Exploration and Production industry have found value in collaborating with Cordiant. The availability of best-in-class infrastructure and telecommunication facilities, Cordiant’s unrelenting focus on Intellectual Property protection have enabled ISVs to immediately take advantage of the benefits of offshoring. In addition to natural benefits of offshoring, these ISVs have leveraged on Cordiant’s expertise in product management and latest technologies.

Extended Product Development Services

Engagement	Domain	Technologies Used	PDF
Core product development and customization for a market leading SOX vendor serving Fortune 500 customers	Governance Risk & Compliance (GRC)	J2EE – EJB, JSP, Servlets, Struts, Web Services, SOAP, JUnit, CACTUS, WSAD 5.x, WebSphere Application Server, JBoss, DB2/Oracle, Windows/ Linux
Building an offshore team for a UK based ISV offering a suite of world-class banking products	Banking & Securities	J2EE – EJB, MDBs, JSP, Servlets and Tag libraries, XML, XSLT, Web Services, SOAP, DB2/ Oracle, WSAD 5.x, WebSphere Application Server, UML & OOAD, Windows/Linux
Product Engineering services for a UK based ISV offering a suite of products for Navigation & Planning	Oil and Gas Exploration	C, Perl, Java 1.5 Tiger, JSP, Servlets , JAXB, Jetty server, Berkeley DB, SlickEdit ,Ajax, Gunplot, Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Product upgradation services for a US based ISV focused on FDA compliance solution for the Life Sciences Industry	FDA Compliance	Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1, Microsoft InfoPath, Microsoft SharePoint Portal server, C#, ASP.NET,Visual SourceSafe, Sub Version, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Internet Information Server 6.0, Windows 2003, MS Virtual Server 2003, Target Process
Product Co-Development with a Brokerage House in the United Kingdom	Financial Services	Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1 , C#, VB.NET, Visual SourceSafe, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, SQL Reporting Server, Internet Information Server 6.0, Windows 2003, WebEx, MSN LiveMeeting, PC Anywhere, GoToMyPC
US Based ISV working for a State Agency	Inventory Management	Microsoft .Net, JavaScript, MS SQL Server 2000, Internet Information Server 5.0, SQL Reporting Server

Other Technology Services

Engagement	Domain	Technologies Used	PDF
Ski Holiday Reservation and e-Marketing System	Travel and Leisure	Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1, C#, VB.NET, Visual SourceSafe, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, SQL Reporting Server, Internet Information Server 6.0, Windows 2003, WebEx, MSN LiveMeeting, PC Anywhere, GoToMyPC
CURL - Rich client technology for a Business Accountability Solution	BPM	Surge CURL, Rich Internet Application, J2EE
Content Management Portal for TMA using MDA RAD	Content Management	MDA RAD, IBM Rational RRD, J2EE, MYSQL, Apache Tomcat, Lucene Search, Linux
Co-sourcing Engagement with a US based CRM Product Vendor	CRM	Lotus Domino 6.5, R6 WebDAV features with tools such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, DXL, XML and XSL, JavaScript, HTML , DHTML, CSS and CSS with XSL, Java, LotusScript and Formula Language, SpeedWork, IBM Lotus Sametime, WebEx
Lotus to J2EE Migration for an Independent Claims Service Provider	Insurance	JDK 1.3, Lotus Notes/Domino Java API, Java Servlet Development Kit 2.0, Eclipse IDE 3.0.1, VSS Plug in version 1.6 for Eclipse 3.0, Microsoft Visual Source Safe 6.0
Software Testing for an Operational Risk Management Solution	Risk Management	JMeter, Mercury QuickTest Professional, Oracle/ DB2, WebSphere/ Weblogic/ JBoss, Windows/ Linux

ENTERPRISE PRODUCT BLOCKBUSTERS FROM CORDIANT

PAISLEY ENTERPRISE GRC

• Engaged with the Customer from 2004 until 2010
• Helped take the product from Vision to Market Leadership
• Deployed in more than 1400 organizations including 30% of Fortune 500
• In the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner Magic Quadrant since 2007
• Acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2009

RUBIKON CORE BANKING

• Product built from the ground up in our Chennai Development Center from 2006 until 2010
• In the Gartner Magic Quadrant for International Retail Core Banking since 2009
• Has pride of place in IBS Sales League Tables
• Strong contender as a new-generation banking solution in the emerging markets
• Successfully transferred the team to Indian subsidiary in 2010 under Build-Operate-Transfer

Traditionally, customers have approached us with a staff augmentation mindset for outsourcing their product development.

This has resulted in us successfully building teams for our customers in as diverse verticals as Banking, Insurance, Governance, Risk and Compliance, to name a few.

Today, we encourage our customers to approach us and say, “Here is the Product Vision, now we want to go to market in ‘x’ months. Cordiant has to take responsibility for everything, including product management and support.”

Welcome to Product Development Services 2.0

Start-ups, Established and Legacy Product Vendors can find a spectrum of services that can be individually tailored to meet their business objectives.

ESTABLISHED PRODUCTS

• Product Customization
• Product Sustenance
• Iterative Design Modifications
• Product Enhancements
• Migration to Cloud and Multi-tenanted SaaS
• Enterprise Mobility
• Test Automation
• Implementation
• Maintenance
• Deployment
• Technical Support

SPEED-TO-MARKET WITH AGILE OFFSHORE

Our value proposition is based on improving speed-to-market and innovation. Employing Agile practices in Development and Testing, we specialize in taking a product from concept to market within aggressively compressed time-frames.

PRE-DEVELOPED SOLUTION ACCELERATORS

Our pre-developed Solution Accelerators can substantially improve time-to-market for our customers. By providing these tested and proven service offerings to our customers, we are also able to deliver to them a much higher level of innovation.

CLOUD AND SAAS-BASED SOLUTIONS

Successfully using Agile methodologies in an Offshore Development setting, we offer Fixed Price engagements for cloud-based, multi-tenanted product development.

ENTERPRISE MOBILITY SOLUTIONS AND THE CLOUD

With empowered employees circumventing the IT organization by purchasing mobile devices (iphones, ipads, android et al) and downloading applications on their own, there is a surging demand from IT organizations for help in managing this mobile device and application environment. We are currently building capability in our India R&D Center in Kochi, Southern India to provide solutions for the cloud-based delivery of mobile applications.

CO-INVESTING IN NEW IDEAS AND PRODUCTS

Cordiant can also co-invest with our customers in new ideas and products.

BUILD-OPERATE-TRANSFER ENGAGEMENTS

The Cordiant Build-Operate-Transfer engagements enable our customers to rapidly start their India Offshore operations, make them sustainable and transfer them as their own subsidiary.

Contact Cordiant

Cordiant Technologies was boot-strapped by Dennis Paul in October 1995 in Cochin (Kochi), Southern India.

Since 1997, Cordiant has been providing India-based offshore development services to an international customer base.

What started off as simple programming services in 1997 by leveraging labor arbitrage through the internet, grew later into a more mature set of offerings to our global customers.

Today, Cordiant Technologies provides Product Development and Internet Application Development to Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), internet businesses and internet-enabled businesses, using Agile Offshore Product Development practices.

Paisley GRC, now part of Thomson Reuters Accelus, is a recognized leader in providing more than 1400 organizations, including 30% of the Fortune 500, with comprehensive solutions to streamline GRC processes, reduce costs of compliance, manage and mitigate risks, and provide visibility, oversight and assurance. Cordiant has been engaged with the customer from 2004 until 2010 as an offshore development partner and helped take the product from vision to market-leadership.

Rubikon, the next-generation Universal Banking Software, almost exclusively developed at our Chennai Development Center through a Build-Operate-Transfer engagement with Neptune Software plc of the UK, continues to make rapid strides in the marketplace.

While most of our earlier engagements in the Product Development space have been predominantly staff-augmentation, since 2010, we have transformed ourselves into a completely Agile Product Development organization.

New Initiatives

This year, the company has set up a new Center of Excellence in e-Learning within its International Tech Park Office in Chennai, India.

A Center of Excellence in Enterprise Mobility is currently being set up in our Indira Nagar, Kochi, Development Center.

The company has also announced plans to promote an Information Technology Research Park (ITRP) in a green-field site in Kochi, Southern India. The Phase I of the ITRP project, for which land has already been acquired, is expected to be operational in 2012.

This has been a very special customer engagement for Cordiant where we saw the product grow from vision to  being a world leader in the  fast maturing Governance, Risk and Compliance ( GRC) platforms market.

With the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, many US corporations were faced with new requirements for audit, operational risk and control.  Our customer’s solution then became the leading application used to address the requirements of Sections 404 and 302 in corporate America.

In 2005, our customer released the first-generation GRC solution that combined the functionality of audit and risk management on a single platform. In 2007, our customer again led the market with the releases of the Enterprise GRC solution and GRC on Demand. These comprehensive GRC solutions have six components built on a single data repository – financial controls management, operational risk management, enterprise risk management, internal audit, IT governance and compliance.

Today, our customer is a recognized leader in providing more than 1400 organizations – including 30 percent of the Fortune 500 – with comprehensive solutions to streamline GRC processes, reduce costs of compliance, manage and mitigate risks, and provide visibility, oversight and assurance.

Gartner has positioned our customer’s product in the Leaders Quadrant of its 2009 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance Platforms. As a matter of record, our customer has been holding its position in the Leaders Quadrant since 2007.

http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/oracle/article92/article92.html

Engagement History & Cordiant Execution

With Federal regulations & SOX deadline, our customer was faced with the challenge of rapidly delivering a product tailored to their customers’ unique requirements within extremely tight timeframes. In essence, a ‘tornado’ approach was required to deliver software solutions to a large number of the world’s top enterprises. Our customer needed to find a reliable and competent offshore partner who would deliver them the advantage of speed-to-market combined with world-class quality.

Cordiant facilitated a quick ramp-up of highly skilled resources for Product Development, QA and Offshore Delivery. Cordiant deployed a 70 member offshore team which functioned as a virtual extension of our customer’s  development team in the United States. Separate teams functioned for core product development and for rapid customization for individual customers. Over time, features were included in the core product to minimize the need for individual customization.

Special efforts were in place at Cordiant to ensure that only highly motivated and superior skilled team players were recruited as part of the team. Thus, our customer got an A-TEAM in India, working as a virtual extension of their team in the US.

Cordiant also provided the customer the flexibility to ramp up and ramp down the team size,  based on the then prevailing demand for resources. This way, our customer benefited from a highly flexible workforce through their relationship with Cordiant.

Technologies used

• J2EE – EJB, JSP, Servlets, Struts
•  Software on Demand, SAAS
• Web Services, SOAP
• JUnit, CACTUS
• WSAD 5.x
• WebSphere Application Server, JBoss
• DB2/Oracle
• Windows/ Linux

Cordiant Technologies, a leading India-based offshore product development company, recently started offering Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) the BOT model through which ISVs can setup their India offshore teams and transfer them as their own subsidiary.

(PRWEB) July 12, 2007 — Cordiant Technologies, a leading India-based offshore product development company, recently started offering Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) the BOT model through which ISVs can setup their India offshore teams and transfer them as their own subsidiary.

The India Offshore option has been increasingly becoming a ‘must-do’ for Independent Software Vendors worldwide. However, setting up an India center and getting it right has been a big challenge. Cordiant Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) is a low-risk approach that enables ISVs to rapidly start their India Offshore operations, make them sustainable and then transfer them as their own subsidiary.

In the Build phase, Cordiant sets up the facility and infrastructure, staff the development center, and establishes knowledge transfer and operating guidelines. During the Operate phase, Cordiant manages the offshore organization for the ISV. This includes program management, development, quality assurance, maintenance, enhancements, and ongoing product support. In the Transfer phase, Cordiant provides help and support to register a new India subsidiary for the ISV, transfer assets, and handover operations to the subsidiary.

“Offshore Product development partnerships demand a substantial level of ISV commitment. The BOT model, as offered by Cordiant ensures that this investment in the engagement is effectively transferred back to the ISV” said,” Mr. Dennis Paul, President & CEO.

To know more about the BOT model offered to ISVs, visit http://www.cordiant.com/bot.aspx

About Cordiant Technologies

Founded in 1995, Cordiant Technologies builds globally aligned India teams for Independent Software Vendors worldwide. Cordiant has offshore product development centers in Chennai and Kochi, Southern India; and a US subsidiary in Princeton, NJ.

For more information, call 609-375-2354 (US), +91-44-4266-6015 ext.111 (India), email: mktg@cordiant.com or visit http://www.cordiant.com

CONTACT: Manoj Gopalakrishnan of Cordiant Technologies, +91-994-019-6015 (India), manoj.g@cordiant.com

WEBSITE: www.cordiant.com

A best-fit engagement model is a critical success factor for any Outsourced Product Development partnership. Cordiant provides customers with flexible engagement models that best serves their unique business requirements. Cordiant works hand-in-hand with customers to determine a model that best suits them and has the flexibility to make adjustments to that model to work it through a long-term relationship. Each model has its benefits in terms of cost, setup, development time and efficient usage of resources.

Cordiant Managed ODC

In this model, Cordiant delivers turnkey solutions to ISVs. Cordiant takes up the complete responsibility of delivering the ISVs products with minimum setup time, optimum resource usage and utmost cost advantage. Through this model, Cordiant works closely with ISVs, shouldering responsibilities right from product envisioning to product launch and support thereafter.

ISV Managed ODC

In this model, Cordiant works as a physical extension of the ISV’s information services department in India. The ISV directly controls the offshore team and takes full responsibility of the product delivery. The offshore team synergizes with ISVs development team to provide support for product development on a short-term and long-term basis. Cordiant also takes up the responsibility of managing infrastructure, facilities, resources, communication and any other pre-requisites for the offshore engagement.

Managed Subsidiary

This model is ideal for companies wanting to start their own subsidiary in India. Cordiant takes up the responsibility of setting up an Indian subsidiary with the required infrastructure, facilities and talent. Cordiant also provides the necessary legal and secretarial support for setting up the new subsidiary.

Build Operate Transfer

ISVs engaged successfully with Cordiant, can convert the offshore development center into wholly owned subsidiary by exercising the BOT option.

Know more about the Cordiant BOT Model.