The Hindu Business Line : IBS succeeds where Honeywell couldn't

THIS takes BPO to another level. The airport operations systems and solutions at Heathrow and Gatwick being manned by geeks sitting in God's Own Country. True, the business came to the Kerala-based IBS Group when it bought out Avient Technologies from Honeywell International in September last. Then, the UK-based company was bleeding to the tune of $ 2 million annually.

In a matter of six months, Avient was turned around and now it is looking at adding substantially to the bottomline of the Indian company.

And as the company looks to push its revenue from Rs 40 crore last year to Rs 75 crore in the current fiscal, the business from Avient would be substantial. "Last fiscal, we could bank on revenues for a mere five months from our UK business. This year, we get a shot at the full 12 months. Also, we have signed another contract with Emirates for crew tracking. A few more are in the offing," said Mr V.K. Mathews, Chairman and Managing Director of IBS Group.

According to him, the turnaround strategy for Avient Technologies was quite simple: "We began outsourcing all the technical work to our Indian hub and we achieved what neither Fujitsu nor Honeywell could. Avient became a profitable venture. And the contract for managing Heathrow and Gatwick airports have been entrusted with us till 2008 by the British Airports Authority."

Now, the company seems to be on a roll, having found a buyer for its passenger reservation system product for the aviation industry, iRES, that it is developing in tandem with Cendant Inc, US. "The deal is close to being sewn up with a medium sized US company for a consideration of $5 million. This is only the nascent stage as the product is slated to be fully developed to meet the requirement of large airlines companies like the British Airways by 2006-end," Mr Mathews said.

The Global Logistics Management System (GLMS) developed by IBS is proving to be a big draw in the niche area of offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Of the 15 global majors that operate over 4,000 offshore platforms in the area, IBS has already sewn up four - the consortium of Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum and Conoco Philips called Gulf Share as also Unocal.