Nihilent

Business India - May 18, 2008

Bigger footprints
This consultancy and software company has found its feet

After three years of struggle, says LC Singh, the company he set up after quitting the erstwhile ICIM, now Zensar Technologies, has recovered and come out with 'decent 'profits. "We have restructured our balance sheet to become a debt free company; we should do well from now on," says Singh, president and CEO of the Pune based global business consulting and solutions integration company Nihilent. "Our footprints have taken shape, especially in quality and change management. We have the right DNA of our own, which we can scale."

In terms of geography, the CMMI level 5 company has resumed its focus in the US, where business doubled in 2006 and new clients are opening up; the UK, where it more than tripled with the acquisition of a 'very large telecommunications company' as a client; and its country of strength South Africa, where it has nearly 260 people and where Singh spends a lot of time overseeing operations himself. "Our model is good," he explains. "We offer change management to make an entry and learn more about the client, including software issues. But consultancy brings in only 20 per cent of our Rs100 crore-plus revenue, technology is the rest."

In December 2006, it opened its second development centre in Pune - a 4000 sq.m state-of-the-art facility with a seating capacity of 700 professionals. By mid-2007, it has taken its headcount to over 1000. "We have also strengthened our presence in the South African market with clients such as Barclays, MTN and South African Airways," Singh says.

The company has stepped up its activity in the domestic market too. It consults for State Bank of India (SBI) and IndusInd Bank with its patented change management framework MC³, and has bagged four clients including for its electronic feedback gathering system Customer Feedback System' (CFS). "A number of other banks are talking to us," says Singh. "We are also targeting the retail, telecom and hospitality industries, as well as manufacturing construction, printing and media." .

Performance Management

As a premier worldwide partner of Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute (SEI), authorised to impart training and conduct appraisals on CMMI, Nihilent assessed a large number of companies in India, Egypt, Iran, South Africa and other countries. It also has a comprehensive performance management too 'Lamat', which uses the balanced scorecard concept for performance management.

"Our MC³ based enterprise transformation practice partners with clients to translate business strategies into business results," Singh says. "Most companies know what to do in terms of vision and strategy, but only 20 per cent or so are able to implement them. Nihilent bridges this gap through MC3 and Lamat, which is a user-friendly and highly robust constituent technology component of MC³."

At the Barclays Group's Absa, one of South Africa's largest financial services groups, chief information officer Frik vd Merwe says, "We have engaged with Nihilent since their inception, primarily in the consulting world with a focus on improving our staff performance management system from objective-setting linked to KPAs (key performance areas) through to the appraisal process."

Standard Bank in South Africa came to Nihilent through Paracon, a local skills provider which have since taken a 35% per cent equity stake in the Indian company. "The first major engagement was in early 2006 when Paracon offered their services to supplement skills provided locally in the fields of application development, testing and applications support. Since late 2006, the bank has embarked on creating a comprehensive e-sourcing strategy, including an investigation of co-sourcing certain non-core areas where we experience skills shortages in SA," says its vice-president, Dr Alewyn Burger.

The Pune based Tain Constructions is a client too. Explains company CEO Tanveer Inamdar: ''Nihilent is helping us put together a working strategy plan from strategic mapping through to activity plan and coordination." In terms of tangible benefits, he says, Tain hopes for "a long term process-oriented approach" in its business. "This will help in generating increased bottom line results as well as a structured and systems based approach in conducting and replicating our business model efficiently," Inamdar adds. That's something Singh seems to have achieved in his own business.

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