| PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: Aspire Systems is
one of the few Indian companies in the OPD
category. |
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| Every year, IT companies across the world
enter the CMMI (capability maturity model
integration) regime to upgrade their CMMI levels.
But Chennai-based Aspire Systems, focused on
helping software companies create innovative
products, is presently not keen on obtaining any
certification for its processes. |
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| “We are a product development firm and we
require flexibility. We want our people to be
agile, flexible and innovative and not spending
more time on paperwork and other issues,” says
Gowri Shankar Subramanian, chief executive officer
of Aspire Systems. |
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| Aspire is one of the companies which has made
significant gains in the field of outsourced
product development (OPD). It is engaged in
developing products from concept to finish that
find applications across business domains. |
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| Compared to generic IT services, OPD is a
specialised field. Few companies in India have
forayed into this space. Globally, the OPD market
is worth $20 billion. |
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| OPD is more about visualisation of innovative
products than efficient and quality coding of
given specifications in offshore software
development and maintenance of software
applications, Subramanian says. |
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| Aspire has about 30 customers in the small and
medium business (SMB) segment, mainly in the US.
Its customers have filed 17 patents based
primarily on Aspire’s work. |
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| “We have been focussing on the SMB segment
because only small and medium-sized companies will
outsource their core development work.Large
companies outsource non-core activities,” said
Subramanian. |
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| In the three years since its inception, the
company has grown two and half times and expects
to end 2006-07 with a revenue of Rs 30 crore and
touch Rs 50 crore in 2007-08 |
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| However, having built strong relationships in
the SMB segment and gained expertise in the
product development segment, the company is
confident of expanding its focus on bigger
companies as well to achieve scale and garner a
larger pie of the OPD market. “We are keen to have
a client base mix of large and small and medium
customers,” said Subramanian. |
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| As part of this move, executive vice-president
Bhoovarahan Thirumalai, will be moving to the US
by January end. The company will also increase its
US marketing offices to four from the present two.
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