Subu D. Subramanian, CEO, Defiance Technologies, a Hinduja Group company, quit last month setting off speculation that the group wants to exit non-core areas.

The buzz was louder when a few days later Ashok Leyland, also a group company, sold its testing service arm Defiance Testing to Exova of the US.

However, V. Sumantran, Chairman, Defiance Technologies, not only denied such talk but says the group has other plans. “We have not lost our passion for growth with Defiance Technologies,” he told Business Line.

Defiance Technologies has a strengthened its management team by recruiting senior professionals from various organisations, including space agency Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), said Sumantran, who is also the Vice-Chairman of Ashok Leyland, discussing the company’s roadmap:

What is your comment on the rumour that Defiance Technologies is up for sale and that a global auto major is interested in buying?

Hardware testing [Defiance Testing] was not core to us and we divested it. But, Defiance Technologies will provide value to the group, which has a strong manufacturing base, in the long run. Many global manufacturing companies have tried to develop something like this.

There is strong benefit that one can realise and the ability to influence ideas and processes is deep. We have built a business model for Defiance Technologies aligned to emerging trends like social media, analytics and cloud [SMAC] and digital marketing in this industry. We are investing not because this is trendy but this is where the customers are investing money and problems are occurring.

Are you infusing funds or bringing a partner?

It could be any of that. We have a critical mass and momentum with us. As new ideas have come along, we will look. As a group, we have not lost our passion for growth. We are bound to grow and we are intending for the next 20 years. We recognise that a 1,000-employee company is still a growing company. The course we are taking will make us bigger. We are establishing presence in Japan, increasing footprint in Europe. It will be a bigger Defiance in future, but can’t tell you more.

How much of Defiance revenue comes from your group?

Less than 10 per cent of revenue comes from group-related activities. This is by design. Being a private limited company, we do not disclose revenue.

Which are key sectors?

We have grown into three verticals namely engineering, ERP and IT and configured the company in these three domains. We have onsite and offshore placement of engineers but a large percentage of revenue comes from turnkey projects.

For example, the company has implemented a cloud-based ERP system for an automotive Tier I who could not afford a full blown ERP or a custom made ERP implementation. We are doing social media analytics for a global automaker in eight languages tracking all over the globe. This is leading to feedback to the marketing department, advertisement department and allocation of advertising budgets and product service department. All of these are domains where we have strong instinct and background. We are not jumping into areas that we do not know.

We hear you hired few senior industry people? Who are they?

We inducted a number of senior domain leaders who have built foundations on many new areas of specialisation. The engineering service vertical is headed by Gajbir Singh, who used to work with ISRO for over two decades. The automotive domain is headed by Arun Roy who came from SAFRAN group. Defiance incubated a growth plan for the medical devices engineering vertical headed by Nagendra Prasad who joined from L&T. We also brought in Venkateswarulu Andra from GE to head the electronics engineering and embedded Systems practice. Kartik Iyengar from Capgemini heads the SAP Captive business. Defiance also augmented its social media and digital media practice headed by Sanjay Sahay, who joined from Infosys.

>raja.simhan@thehindu.co.in

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