An established player in the Business Process Management and Customer Relationship Management space, Pegasystems is exploring the Indian subcontinent to aid its global clientele.
By Durba Ghosh
Pegasystems Inc., a Business Process Management (BPM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions provider is betting big on Asia Pacific region, including India to drive its sales and expects the country to overtake North America in producing the highest number of engineers in next few years.
“The quality of engineers India produces is very good. I don’t think we can get the same quality anywhere else. Talent pool in India in general has an edge over others. Our interest in India is not based on cost reduction,” Suman Reddy, Managing Director, Pegasystems India said. India is becoming increasingly crucial from Pegasystems’ point of view, as clients in the UK and the US are also setting base in the country making it one of the most lucrative markets to explore. North America has the highest number of engineers, in few years, India will be the biggest, he added.
The US-based company has created a development environment to allow it to be run completely in a browser. The company, with presence in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia has over several thousand customer instances running on the Cloud today. Banking on the huge involvement in social networking in the enterprise segment, Pegasystems also offers solutions to integrate inputs from Twitter, mash up into Facebook, and create a seamless environment between what happens in a business operation and in the social world.
Pegasystems recently set up a 55,000 square feet facility in Bangalore to deliver R&D, engineering services, industry solutions framework and customer support to its global clientele. Its Bangalore facility, which currently has nearly 120 associates, is the company’s second facility after Hyderabad.
The company plans to increase its headcount at the Bangalore facility in next few years. Along with the Bangalore entry, the Hyderabad facility has also been recently expanded to accommodate future growth that company has planned in the country for 2012. Pegasystems currently has almost 25% of its global workforce in India.
The company is currently targeting the Asia-Pacific region, including Thailand, China and India to drive overall sales. Its flagship product – PRPC, which is distributed in India through its partners, has shown the highest traction in the country.
However, Pegasystems plans to enter the Indian domestic market on its own only by next year. “It’s a conscious effort to not get into Indian market as of now. We first want to stabilise our R&D here,” Reddy said. The company currently relies on its partners, including Accenture, Capgemini, Infosys and Wipro, for domestic distribution.
The importance of India as a lucrative market is gradually increasing for the company. Since 2008, when it set shop in India. The number of global calls being handled out of the country has grown to account for about one-third of Pegasystems’ total call traffic, and is growing in double digits.
Already, about one-fourth of Pegasystems’ overall organisation is premised in India, with Bangalore housing one of the biggest centres.
“The Indian operation is playing a very important and strategic role in aiding our global growth and vision of delivering the world’s best solutions to all our clients. Over the years, we have been increasingly investing and will continue to invest in the country to grow our operations here,” Alan Trefler, Founder and CEO, Pegasystems said.
Reddy, the company’s India head, feels that business conduct in India has come of age. In a very short span, acceptance for mobility has surged manifold, with organisational communication happening through various channels and various devices.
Pegasystems, which has served clients such as OCBC bank, Warner Brothers and ING bank, claims that its ability to offer seamless transition between those devices and operating systems is the vantage point over its competitors.
“We take up predictive and adaptive analytics. Companies use the analytic info for outbound market also,” Reddy said.
However, he added that the Indian market is still evolving. In India, primary focus is revenue generation and recording a double digit growth as far as BPM and CRM services are concerned.
While in the overseas market, it is now more about cost optimisation.
At present, there are a lot of operational functions that are carried out manually in Indian enterprises. Pegasystems aims to automate those systems, which in turn can mean significant cost cuts. Studies have shown a 5 times increase in customer retention and about 30% to 40% increase in revenues due to automation of various functions.
A point in case will be BAA Airports Limited, that was able to improve their on-time departure rate from 68% to 85% using Pegasystems’ solutions. The company is also working with telcos such as O2 and Vodafone to optimise their customer experience and automate the operations.
Giving a perspective for the future, Reddy said that more companies in India will invest in mobility in the coming years and Cloud adoption among the enterprises will increase. “That gives us a huge opportunity here, as the market is evolving and we can strike young,” he said. Although the market is unlikely to see any revolutionary or disruptive technology in the coming few years. “The existing technologies will mature in coming years and so will the services,” Reddy added.
