Defiance, an IT and engineering services provider and part of the Hinduja Group, is looking to build customised SAP solutions for specific industries and verticals through centres of excellence (CoEs).
These solutions will be for select verticals such as automotive, pharmaceuticals and oil and gas, says Subu D Subramanian, Chief Executive Officer of Defiance Technologies.
Mr. Subramanian told The Hindu that with the offshoring model getting matured there are a lot more players offering offshored SAP services. As a result, the next wave is the development of pre-configured solutions for specific industries and niche verticals.
Defiance was already working with its global partner Lodestone Management Consultants, AG. The partnership would harness Lodestone's significant capability in SAP consulting and Defiance's unique expertise in SAP technology, implementation and offshoring.
SAP had matured to become the preferred choice as the enterprise backbone for global organisations, he said. The early 2000's saw an increase in SAP offshoring with the adoption of the global delivery model by an increasing number of IT players. As result, Defiance was targeting customised solutions for product lifecycle management (PLM), customer relationship management (CRM), mobility solution, enterprise analytics and service parts management (SPM). These solutions helped customers achieve a shorter implementation time and also adopt best industry practices.
Mr. Subramanian said nearly 40 new customers were added in the last 12 months and so far had over 80 active global clients including 30 Fortune 500 companies. He said Defiance GmbH was established to help expand presence in European markets and alliances were established with Lodestone, SAP, Dassault Systems, Siemens and Microsoft.
He said the company focussed on ‘3E' strategy for growth, which included engineering services, enterprise business solution and emerging technologies. Under the engineering services, he said with automotive engineering had one of its most matured competencies, Defiance had gone beyond plain vanilla engineering services. Defiance's engineering, testing and manufacturing services are offered on a global delivery model.
The CEO was of the view that Indian IT and engineering services firms needed to move beyond plain vanilla engineering services which were at the bottom of the pyramid. Moving up the pyramid, Defiance had been offering engineering consulting solutions and programme management for global customers. It had set to play a significant role at the top of the pyramid as a system integrator for sub-system and product development.
Defiance offered next generation value added solutions leveraging the latest advances in telematics and communication technologies, said Jayendra Parikh, Executive Director, Head-Advanced Engineering and Mission Summit, Ashok Leyland. Defiance has also partnered a leading OEM to offer end-to-end telematics solutions, which were more than just track and trace solutions. Leveraging cloud and mobility technologies, the company offered end-to-end telematics and mobility solutions.
Kumar Mallampalli, Head (Collaborative Technology Services), Defiance, said that recently the company had created an integrated telematics solution and used it on hybrid buses which were used during the Delhi Commonwealth Games. The solution monitored and analysed vehicle diagnostics information, in real time, from remote locations (on mobile devices).The in-vehicle passenger infotainment system displayed on LCD screens live video streams, dynamic news content and the Games' medals tally via the Internet.
Mr. Mallampalli said Defiance's telematics solutions like real time order to delivery system helped to address direct delivery challenges of industries such as food and beverage
