At Mumbai-headquartered Geometric Ltd, there are plans to create a very small consulting practice, said Mr Manu Parpia, who took over as Managing Director and CEO of the company around 10 months ago.

“The idea is to get to talk to customers to find out what they want, and make proposals to them which will, in turn, lead to services to create the necessary solutions,” he said.

The company is also open to small acquisitions, in the $25-30 million range, said Mr Parpia, who was founder-vice-chairman of the company before he took over as executive head.

Having addressed the basics during the last six months, the company is now poised to go after growth, for which it is in a good position, he said. While during the downturn of 2008 customers were postponing projects, many are currently in a position where they can no longer do so.

In fact, people mean to get more engineering services even if faced with recession. In manufacturing, the creative prototype is made as late as possible to save time to market, and this has been driving up demand for digitialisation, simulation and engineering services, said Mr Parpia. There has also been a demographic shift with fewer and fewer people in the Europe, Japan and the US choosing to do engineering. A telling fact is that the US' H1 visa quota was filled in two-and-a-half months, he noted.

While there are many opportunities, the catch is in the execution, he said. “The question is: Are we structured to cater to the demand, for the approach is changing from the ‘execution mindset' to the ‘solution mindset'?” he said.

In the solution mode, one looks not just at meeting service level agreements but at the whole process itself. “One has to think on behalf of the customers to save costs for them. For example, offer them a two-click solution and not a seven-click solution, even if they have not asked for it.

Special domains

Small companies like Geometric have to work hard to establish credibility, he said. “It will also take us some time to establish our own non-linear business model (where revenues rise faster than in proportion to headcount)

Geometric specialises in the domain of engineering solutions, services and technologies, and has a portfolio of global engineering services and digital technology solutions for product lifecycle management (PLM).

Engineering services contributed 40 per cent of revenue, software services 55 per cent and tech solutions 5 per cent of revenue in the previous year. Around 70 per cent of its business came from the US. The company's consolidated revenue for the third quarter of the current fiscal was Rs 219 crore, 34 per cent higher than a year ago. Net profit rose 39 per cent.

> kripram@thehindu.co.in

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