The Hindu Business Line : US co ThoughtWorks expanding operations here

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Chennai Feb. 8 Anticipating demand for its best practices offerings, US-based ThoughtWorks Technologies is expanding its Indian operations.

Based in Bangalore over the last five years, the company has recently set up an office at Pune. It also plans to double headcount to over 350 people by the end of 2007, according to Mr Chaitanya Nadkarny, Director-Operations, ThoughtWorks Technologies Private Ltd. "We also plan to set up more centres over the next 2-3 years," he said. The company offers delivery, advisory and transformational services to information technology (IT) companies across the globe. Though set up primarily to service global clients, the company has been seeing an increased demand for its organisational transformation and `Agile Enablement' services from domestic IT companies. These services focus on improving the productivity of IT teams and help them handle more sophisticated projects. Domestic IT companies are finding their old style of operation and software lifecycle management unresponsive to new challenges, said Mr Nadkarny. "The last two years have seen mission critical projects failing, more so in India. This showcases us as a poor value proposition for companies to develop their projects," he told Business Line.

Agile Enablement

Agile Enablement is a set of best practices that helps to streamline software delivery practices, similar to `Just-In' and `Lean Management' practices in the manufacturing industry. It also helps companies execute mission critical projects.

As local IT companies undertake more complex projects, the demand for these practices is bound to increase. The company expects transformational and enablement services to contribute about 20 per cent to its Indian revenues in the next 2-3 years.

In 2006, these services contributed about 10 per cent to the company's revenues of over $5 million. It also expects its total revenues from Indian operations to cross $10 million in 2007.