Hitachi Solutions, a core IT company of the Hitachi Group and a provider of solutions and services based on Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has identified India as a high growth market for the company?s future growth. The Tokyo-based firm is making aggressive investments in the region on sales, services and customer support operations, besides building up development capabilities for its next generation products and services. Recently, Hitachi Solutions opened its development centre in Hyderabad, which will cater to the company?s US and UK clients in the area of Microsoft Dynamics that offers financial, supply chain and human capital management solutions.
Hitachi Solutions contributes 20-25% of Hitachi?s IT business of $19 billion. A few months back, Hitachi Solutions established its subsidiary?Hitachi Solutions India. Based in Chennai, this supports Hitachi Solutions? global implementation efforts and directly provides sales, services, and customer support of Microsoft Dynamics-based solutions to the Southeast Asian market. The company also maintains technology and consulting resources in Pune.
?India is a very strategic market for Hitachi Solutions, and part of its global growth strategy,? Masakazu Kuji, president of Hitachi Solutions America and executive officer Hitachi Solutions, told FE in an interview in Hyderabad. The Hyderabad and Chennai development centres together employ 200 professionals. The number could grow to 500 by 2015. ?The global delivery centre (GDC) in Hyderabad will serve global key markets including Japan in future. It will also serve as an important hub for intellectual property (IP) development besides catering to the developmental needs of its customers across key markets,? he said.
On choosing Hyderabad as its largest delivery centre in the country, Hitachi Solutions India CEO Ananth Subramanian said, ?The costs and availability of talent played an important role in choosing Hyderabad as the largest centre. The Hyderabad centre will be a key place for our growth and sustainability.?
According to Hitachi officials, India and other Southeast Asian countries are now experiencing high business growth. This is in part because Japanese and Western multinationals are locating manufacturing and distribution facilities in the region. Hitachi Solutions India will also work with other Hitachi Solutions business units and personnel from Japan, US, UK, and other markets.
?The Hyderabad centre is a critical component in the IP development as our important solution developments are done through the team in India. We get great technical and domain and testing talents in India who form our IP development team,? the Hitachi Solutions president said. ?Our India GDC is also focusing on re-platforming our existing and proven industry solutions to Microsoft Dynamics. It will strengthen our North America, UK, and Asia Pacific businesses as well as expand our geographic coverage to other regions as we grow our business.?
According to the Hitachi Solutions president, the company is experiencing a strong growth in its Microsoft Dynamics business. ?We grew 66% y-o-y last year in spite of a sluggish global economy and we are expecting a good growth factor this year as well. We are always researching and investigating the global market which can help our business expand rapidly and effectively as well as contributing to societies. We are winning enterprise deals and strategic deals across US, UK, Japan and Canada. With our India centre, we are also getting into Asia Pacific market. We see that Asia Pacific is a good market from Dynamics business perspective. The India delivery centre will cater to the development needs of our clients in US and UK and will be a centre with high availability and connectivity to the America/Europe/APAC and other key markets.?
The Hyderabad facility will also cater to the industry-academic collaboration based Academic Incubation initiative that Hitachi Solutions India has embarked on. The company has partnered with two engineering colleges in Chennai and will soon partner with few colleges in Hyderabad to make students industry ready. ?We will choose 50-100 students who will provide training on Microsoft Dynamics skills,? the Hitachi Solutions India head informed.
