baan born again

7/23/2019 Baan Born Again

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HE HAS BEEN TO INDIA 50 TIMES IN

the last 20 years. He also madedirect investments in Hyderabadmore than a decade ago, and is one

of the early birds. Little wonderthen that Jan Baan, 61, Chairman &

Founder of Cordys, an emergingplayer in BPMS (business process

management software), and one

who often gets referred to as a serial

entrepreneur, says: “ India hasalways been key to me in my global

plans. I have invested in India forover 20 years and have gained valu-

able experience of using the talentpool in India for product develop-

ment and support.” Currently, he isin discussions with a few Indian

universities to arrive at ways ofworking together in areas of SOA

(Service-oriented architecture), BPM

and other areas of research. “We arealso looking at setting up labs in

select colleges where students canw o r k w i t h o u r p r o d u c t s a n d

participate in projects with us.”

Baan, of course, is best known for

Indo Rama and Biyani’s FutureGroup , i t may be the turn o f

Reliance and the Bharti Group toventure into this segment, if media

reports are right Reliance Retail issaid to be in talks for a JV with

Off ice Depot o f the US. BijouKurien, President & Chief Executive(Lifestyle & Luxury), Reliance

Retail, says the company is evalu-ating various international options.

According to a Bharti spokesper-son, Wal-Mart will not be the sourc-

ing partner for this particularsegment and the company willc o n s id e r o t h e r i n t e r n a t i o n a l

alliances for this foray.It’s doubtless a huge opportu-

nity, but retail industry analysts likeA r v i n d S i n g h a l , C h a i r m a n ,

Technopak Advisors, aren’t tooenthused by the low margins in the

office supplies business. Singhal’sconcern stems from the fact thatthe market is already saturated in

the four major divisions of thebusiness—paper, stationery, stor-

age & furniture and equipment &technology. “ Due to an a bsence of

aspirational value-add to the prod-ucts, there is a clear lack of brand -

loyalty in the segment and thecompanies will find it difficult toenter,” w arns Singhal.

PALLAVI SRIVASTAVA

Lander LandsA niche US retailer quietly moves in.

ORG ANISED RETAIL IS DOUBTLESSwhere the action is, and it’s

not only the likes of Bharti-Wal-

Mart, Reliance and the FutureG roup that are making the moves.

Smaller global names targetingniche audiences are also entering

the country. Recently, for instance,the US-based health and beautyproducts major, Ascendia Brands,

the company that owns the Landerbrand, entered into a tie-up with

Sankalp Retail Value Stores (SRVS).SRVS had earlier brought the My

Dollar store to India. “ The explo-sion of modern retail in India is a

huge opportunity for a companylike ours,” says Harrie Driessen,Ascendia’s Executive Vice-President

and Managing Director. Ascendiais a company that was founded in

1920 and its Lander brand has apresence in categories like baby

products, gel, hair care, oral careand skin care. “ We are not thebest but we offer high-quality prod-

ucts,” adds Driessen.The reason to be in India is

not hard to understand and thefact that a mere 3 per cent of total

Indian retail comes from the

organised segment is the most obv-ious factor. “ Our concept is about

offering great value coupled with agood product. We will take time to

establish our brand,” says Driessen.For Ascendia, Philippines is thelargest market in Asia; globally it

has a presence in 90 countries.India will be the most important

country for Ascendia this year.“ Over the next five years, we exp-

ect to have higher penetrat ion lev-els and a presence across more retailoutlets. We could also start making

products in India although it will beimportant to get the volumes,” states

Driessen. The challenge? “ In India,space is limited and expensive.”

K R I SH N A G O P AL AN

Ascendia’s Driessen: India on his mind

Future Group’s Biyani: Retail redux

bt current

He now wants to be theToyota of the IT world.

Baan,

Born Again

U ME S H G O S WAM

I



the eponymous enterprise resource

planning software firm he founded

in 1978.The Netherlands-headquartered

Cordys was recently noted by

G artner as one of the top five BPMS

vendors to watch in 2007. The

company recently secured $67 mil-

lion (Rs 281.4 crore) in fundingfrom Argonaut Private Equity and

$13 million (Rs 54.6 crore) from

Baan himself. The BPMS market,according to Baan, could well be a

$1 billion (Rs 4,200 crore) global

market by end-2007, and couldtouch $2.6 billion (Rs 10,920 crore)

by 2011. BPMS is a class of enterprise

software that is being referred to

as the next generation of businessprocess management software; it

brings together a broader set ofweb services tools to provide a com-mon interface for all business users.

Or very simply, it focuses on soft-

ware that in a way knits togetherapplications and people at a business

process level.

“ We want to see ourselves asbeing the McKinseys and Toyotas of

the IT w orld.” The analogies to

these companies, he explains, ismade to set the direction in the

organisation for individuals who

can offer high value to customers in

terms of effective solutions atshorter lead times, improve collab-

oration and increase business agility.

“ We are seeing the benefits of anagile development methodology in

our product development efforts;

this combined with principles oflean manufacturing, which have

been so effectively used in other

domains like automotives, areexamples we wish to emulate and

adopt.” These practices combined

with the modern tools available

today to conduct meetings over theinternet and adoption of standards

like SOA create an ideal opportu-nity for a “ cyber consultant” , that isa person who is available over the

web to assist in pre-sales, consulting

and support.Baan’s focus for the past three

years has been on product devel-

opment. “ The next few years willsee us increasing our go-to-market

efforts.” The company currently

has 250 people globally in R&D (outof which 210 are in Hyderabad

alone) out of a total headcount of

around 520 people.E . K U M AR S H AR M A

Cordys’ Baan:Spotting talent

The NewSpark

Spark, the company’s foray into

the small car market, and pro-claimed that “G eneral Moto rs is

getting serious about India.”

R a je e v C h a b a , M a n a g i n gDirector, G M India, believes that

despite production constraints, the

company had to enter this segmentnow, “before it got too crowded.”

Small cars, classified as segment A1

and A2 by the Society of IndianAutomobile Manufacturers (SIAM),

account for 77.3 per cent of the

domestic market for passenger cars(as opposed to passenger vehicles

which includes utility vehicles), a

segment dominated by MarutiUdyog (MUL).

The Spark, which is a re-engi-

neered Daewoo Matiz, has beenaggressively priced by G eneral

Motors with a starting price of Rs

3.09 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi) fora non-airconditioned model, going

up to Rs 3.89 lakh for the top-end

model. While the vehicle is beingsold at a discount to the base-model

of the Zen Estilo, the Maruti comes

with air-con as standard.G M , whose Indian operations

have suffered from a legacy of poor

service and quality, is offering a

three-year/100,000 km w arranty

bt current

FO R A C O M PAN Y TH AT SO LD

38,875 vehicles last year, less

than 3 per cent of the domesticmarket for passenger vehicles in

India, the world’s second largest

automobile manufacturer, G eneralMotors (for the record, Toyota out-

sold G M during the first quarter of

the 2007 calendar), is extremelybullish about the Indian market. So

bullish that G M C EO Rick Wagoner

came down to launch the Chevrolet GM’s Wagoner: Gathering speed

GM is getting serious about

India—seriously.

A .P R AB H

AK

AR R A O

R A J K U M

A R

baan born again

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