Sonata Software will focus on global business expansion and tapping opportunities in digital transformation of businesses by leveraging its latest Platformation tool, says P Srikar Reddy, MD & CEO.

The Bengaluru-headquartered company, which has logged impressive quarter results ended December 2017, will also grow its international business and IP-led offerings, while consolidating its domestic market strengths.

The company returned profits of ₹50 crore of which global business earned ₹41 crore in the last quarter.

Having acquired three companies in the last four years in the US, Sonata has appetite for more acquisitions to grow faster. Sonata acquired IBIS, a supply chain software provider, Halosys, an enterprise mobility solutions firm and Rezopia, a cloud-based travel ERP system provider along with the business of XYKA Software all for a few million dollars . Plans are afoot to grow in the Nordic market. Sonata picked up 15 per cent stake in Izara (Microsoft dynamix 365) of Denmark towards the last quarter of 2017 in this direction, Srikar Reddy told BusinessLine in a recent interview here.

The company’s two large centres in Redmond and Atlanta in the US have the wherewithal to meet the challenges of the expansion and providing customer services in the US. In fiscal 2016-17, the company achieved a turnover of ₹2,560 crore with a profit of about ₹153 crore.

Platformation tool

Sonata is betting big on its trademarked, Platformation tool, whose four key pillars are open standards, data driven intelligence, scalability and partner based ecosystem. The platform has been tested over the past year and will be offered to retailers, modern logistics and distribution firms, travel companies and internet service providers, Srikar said.

Traditionally, business models were product-centric and set limitations on the makers as well as the customers. For the customers, the limitation was in terms of usage – they had no flexibility in usage, paying for the whole product, even if only needing a part of it, and paying for the duration on offer, irrespective of the actual time of usage.

With the advent of cloud, the model has changed to ‘pay per-use’. Instead of deploying the product at the customer’s premises, the provider hosts it centrally on the cloud. Clients and users can access the platform through the internet from anywhere and at anytime.

Platforms connect the providers and customer, allowing them to interact and transact while exposing the application programming interfaces (API) to third-party developers. Sonata has recruited a senior Head for its Platformation drive.

Sonata has grown into a nearly 4,000-strong company, with 2,500 of them being recruited in the last 3-4 years. It is looking at expansion in Hyderabad with a new facility in the near future, Srikar said.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW