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Vishwanath Kulkarni

SETLabs, the applied research unit of Infosys Technologies, is quietly making a difference to the company's workforce and its productivity.

SOFTWARE Engineering and Technology Labs (SETLabs), the applied research unit of Infosys Technologies Ltd, has quietly made a difference to the company. Infosys has been using SETLabs as an effective differentiation tool even as it competes with the big players in the global market.

The processes and methodologies developed by SETLabs have helped the company to charge premium rates in the marketplace. They have also been able to enhance the overall effectiveness and the productivity of Infoscians.

SETLabs was set up in 1999 and its basic mandate was to carry out applied research, focus on emerging technology and find out how to use technology for solutions for customers, says the Associate Vice-President and Head of SETLabs, Subu Goparaju. The thrust was on developing frameworks and methods that would focus on smoothening out the critical points during a project lifecycle, understanding customer requirements and ensuring project uptime. The performance of SETLabs, Goparaju says, could be measured in different contexts. It has come out with over 100 thought papers most of which have been published in international magazines. "We have managed to get about four patents over the last four years," he says, adding that the lab has generated many processes and frameworks that could be patented. "However, we are still evaluating options whether to go ahead with filing more patents or commercialising them," he says. Enhancing employee productivity is among the biggest contribution of SETLabs to Infosys. "By implementing our processes, the overall productivity has gone up by 15 to 35 per cent in various cases," Goparaju says.

SETLabs is focussed on emerging technologies such as Web Services, Business Process Management, Grid Computing and Ontology, better known as Knowledge Engineering. It is also focussing on pervasive infrastructure — such as mobility and RFID and all wireless technologies.

SETLabs had a focus group on security. This has been spun off into a separate client facing practice that is now part of the systems integration team.

Similarly, the focus group on .Net technologies has also been spun off. It has two more focus groups on Web Services and J2EE that could be spun off later once they reach critical mass.

SETLabs, which currently has some 100 people, has developed about five to six frameworks on business modelling, technology and product innovation.

The most popular one, called Influx, a project methodology, has helped the company in winning deals, says Goparaju. SETLabs has also built solutions around IT effectiveness and for Sarbanes Oxley Compliance, among others. "So far," Goparaju says, "We have been fairly successful in creating a differentiator for Infosys."

SETLabs has emerged as the central R&D team of Infosys and is focusing on innovation, creation of intellectual property (IP) and management of IPs.

The company has been using the processes and frameworks developed by SETLabs for effective implementation of almost all major deals, he says, but declines to cite specific instances.

"Most of our processes are used especially in the early lifecycle stages," he says. SETLabs does not have a separate marketing team. "We keep constantly evangelising the client facing teams of Infosys so that any frameworks developed here could be marketed properly."

vishwa@thehindu.co.in

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