The Hindu Business Line : Polaris to scale up headcount by 2,000

Polaris Software Lab will increase its employee strength by 1,500 to 2,000 to end the March 2007 fiscal with 8,500 to 9,000 employees, according to Mr Arun Jain, Chairman & CEO, Polaris.

The Chennai-based software company will spend Rs 75 crore on capital expenditure during the current fiscal, he said.

"Given the current visibility in the opportunity and solutions pipeline, we are confident of achieving 5-7 per cent revenue growth in the coming quarter and growth in profit margins of 15-20 per cent over the previous quarter," he told the shareholders at the company's annual general meeting. Polaris' consolidated revenue was Rs 232.05 crore during the June 2006 quarter.

According to Mr Jain, in the last three years Polaris has transformed itself into a company in the "super specialisation" space of integrated solution provider to financial solutions worldwide. This model is built around intellectual properties rather than cost arbitrage or scale based application maintenance and support business.

"There is WalMart and there are players like Armani and Gap. Both are growing and catering to different needs of the market places. Polaris chose to become an Armani," he said.

During the current quarter, the company plans to take its Intellect Cash and Liquidity Management platform to the North American market, he said.