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Bharat Kumar

The trend might be to look for many vendors, but TRW Automotive prefers to go with the chosen one.

Mr Joe Drouin

AS a supplier to formidable automotive names such as General Motors, TRW Automotive bets heavily on the safety it weaves into components that it supplies carmakers.

Braking systems, steering systems, airbag inflation systems and seat belts... all have one theme running through them: Safety.

Interestingly, that's what Joe Drouin seems to have found in Satyam Computer Services. As vice-president and chief information officer of TRW Automotive, Drouin is betting solely on Satyam Computer Services as offshore services provider to his company.

At a time when most CIOs are going beyond just one IT vendor, Drouin's trust in Satyam is unique.

eWorld caught up with Drouin for about only 10 minutes in his busy schedule in India. Snapshots from the chat:

Is TRW Automotive beginning to feel the impact of the business slowdown that several carmakers have faced worldwide, General Motors, Ford... ?

Yes. It sure does leave an impact. We have also had to make up for factors such as steel price rises. In the US, for every licensable driver, there is a car on the road. That causes us to be more focused on every dollar spent on information systems.

How have your IT budgets behaved in these last few years?

They have remained flat for the last couple of years. I am hoping they will continue that way looking forward.

Clients who typically source from one vendor are looking at more. What's your game plan, especially when it comes to modular outsourcing where you throw out bits to specialists? For example, would you give out application and maintenance services to Satyam and probably engineering services to other vendors?

We are comfortable with having one exclusive vendor for offshore services. So far, I haven't found much that Satyam couldn't do. Coincidentally, we share the same sweet spot. From a practical standpoint, both TRW and its leadership have a lean structure. The machine is running well. Feels well-oiled... Having to work on and develop one more vendor would absorb more of my leadership and management resources. Earlier we used to have a dozen strong team overseeing administrative issues rising out of dealing with a vendor. Now, even that is gone. For now, we are not looking at having more than one offshore vendor.

bharatk@thehindu.co.in

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

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