The Hindu Business Line : Sonata mulls BPO foray, eyes buys

SONATA Software is considering foraying into the business process outsourcing sector, especially in the insurance space. The company is actively looking at acquisitions and is in talks with a couple of US firms, said Sonata Software's President and Managing Director, Mr B. Ramaswamy.

"An acquisition would help us to scale up the business quickly," Mr Ramaswamy said, adding that the company was looking at firms with multiple customers and revenue of around $50 million. However, Mr Ramaswamy declined to comment on the timeframe as to when the acquisition would be completed.

Sonata would focus its BPO operations on areas such as claims and transaction processing, which would be tied to its IT services offerings, Mr Ramaswamy said. However, he clarified that the company was not looking at a voice-related operations such as a call centre. The company, which is also considering a foray into the tech-support business, is running an advanced pilot programme for a US networking firm. "We expect this engagement to scale up," he added.

Meanwhile, the Bangalore-based company is expanding its development operations to Hyderabad. The company is setting up a 78,000 sq ft development and disaster recovery centre in Hyderabad. "We expect to hire some 200 people in Hyderabad by January-end," Mr Ramaswamy said, adding that the company would also give an option for its existing employees to relocate. The company has added some 400 employees to its rolls during the last two quarters taking its overall headcount to 1,200. "We are back on the growth path and are trying to cope with it," he added.

Sonata added about 10 customers in the last two quarters. Recently, it signed up a multi-year outsourcing deal with TUI UK for providing application management services, developing e-business applications and develop and implement Oracle application. However, Mr Ramaswamy didn't elaborate on the number of people that Sonata would be deploying in the overseas development centre being set up for TUI UK.

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