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India Profile: Tech MahindraGagandeep Kaur

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Before the revolution that made the Indian telecom market one of the world's largest, Tech MahindraLtd. was a global company based in India, rather than an Indian company catering to the global market.

But that's more to do with its roots than with the gestation period of the Indian mobile sector.

Founded in 1986, the company was initially formed as a joint venture between Mahindra & Mahindraand BT Group plc (NYSE:BT;London: BTA) under the name Mahindra-British Telecom, and, from thebeginning, had a dual focus on IT as well as network services, making it one of the pioneers of theService Provider Information Technology (SPIT) sector.

Even today, Tech Mahindra, which adopted i ts current name in early 2006, believes this is a mix thatdifferentiates it from its rivals.

"We are focused, not just on IT, but on the network side as well," says senior VP Soumitra (Raju)Wadalkar, who heads the company's network- focused unit. "We have a large network practice…network and OSS together. So we can provide an end-to-end network, as well as IT outsourcing," boasts

Wadalkar. The company also recently opened a next-generation network interoperability test lab inBangalore.

So, for example, the company has a five-year, $700 million deal with BT to help the British carrierdevelop its IT, OSS, and applications management capabilities for its ongoing 21CN transformationprogram, and is trying to take the skills it has developed from such projects in Europe and NorthAmerica, where it generates most of its business, into the broad Asia/Pacific market.

And now, with business opportunities in its home market growing, the company has a separate unit(formed in 2009) dedicated to promoting that IT/networks combination to its domestic market.

The vast majority of Tech Mahindra's revenues, which totaled 46.25 billion Indian rupees (US$1.03billion) in the year to March 31 2010, still comes from international markets – with BT still a majorsource of its income -- but domestic revenues should be a greater contributor to the top line in thecoming years as it boosts its presence at home.

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Table 1: Tech Mahindra Sheet

Company name Tech Mahindra Ltd.

Location Pune, Maharashtra

Founded 1986Key executives Vineet Nayyar, Vice Chairman & Managing Director; Sanjay Kalra, CEO; L.

Ravichandran, Executive Vice President and COO

Headcount andlocations

33,500 staff, operations in 25 countries with 16 regional offices worldwide

Company focus IT services, communication network services

Revenues US1.03 bil lion in the financial year to March 31, 2010

Profitability $155.2 mil lion in the financial year to March 31, 2010

Headline customers BT, AT&T, Etisalat DBMain competitors Infosys, Wipro

"Apart from BT, the largest contract we closed was in India," says Wadalkar, referring to a 10-year dealto support newcomer Etisalat DB India with network and IT services in a deal valued at INR20 billion($444 million).

The company's global relationships and its standing in the international marketplace also appear to behelping it build in the Indian market. Tech Mahindra is believed to have a strong working relationshipwith Etisalat in the Middle East, while other key customers in India, Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd. andS Tel Pvt. Ltd. , also have overseas parents in Sistema JSFC (London : SSA) and BahrainTelecommunications Co. (Batelco) , respectively.

Even so, Tech Mahindra isn't planning to grab every domestic deal that's available. In fact, RajeshBhimsen Chandiramani, VP of sales and marketing, and head of the Indian business, doesn't expect localdeals to generate much more than 6 to 7 percent of the company's annual revenues. "We consciouslywalked away from some of the deals in the Indian market, even though we did bid for all for them," saysChandiramani, though he declined to identify the deals that Tech Mahindra rejected. Chandiramani did,though, say that the overall size of the deals, and the parentage, are factors that are always considered.

In the current year, the network side of Tech Mahindra's business is set to focus on media hubs, contentdelivery networks, and service delivery platforms. In addition, the company will "also be focusing on theenterprise segment, which is a little weak in India," says Wadalkar. "Outside India we're doing a lot of work with the operators to service their enterprise customers, so we can bring that knowledge into Indiaand help the operators service their enterprise customers much better." That's a focus that should behelped by Tech Mahindra's integration with Satyam following last year's acquisition.

— Gagandeep Kaur, India Editor, Light Reading