We always look beyond our immediate opportunity as to what we can do
K K Singh
CMD,
Rolta Group of Companies
Rolta celebrates its
silver jubilee, this
year. In the last 25
years, Rolta has grown to have a market
cap that exceeds Rs. 5,000 Crores
(US $ 1.25 Billion).
It started in 1980, when Mr. K K Singh
came to Mumbai and started an IT
company with a group of 15 to 20 professionals
with technical and managerial
skills and a business model. That
time there was a need for data processing
jobs and they started with complete
turnkey inter-branch sheet consolidation
with Bank of Baroda, Central
Bank of India, and Union Bank of India.
They then entered into development of
software, inventory and payroll management,
financial accounting, and
providing enterprise solutions.
In 1985 they decided to enter the
CAD/CAM/GIS market and soon
realised that there was ample scope for
these technologies, but to sustain it
required business associations. In 1986
Rolta partnered with Intergraph to provide
geospatial solutions to the government
departments.
The first breakthrough came when
Rolta supplied digital mapping systems
and solutions to Survey of India
(SoI) in 1986. This was followed by other
major surveying and mapping
organizations such as Forest Survey of
India (FSI), National Remote Sensing
Agency (NRSA), becoming their customers.
By 1990 they ventured into the
manufacturing of hardware workstations
and also into software development.
In 1993 - 94, Rolta ventured into
turnkey projects solution and bagged a
$50 million mapping project for Saudi
telecom and later for Hong Kong telecom
and many others worldwide. This
led to opening up of
offices in the US, Europe
and Middle East.
Later in 2000, they
purchased the licenses
for Internet services
to create a technology
fountain around
which they could
develop competence
for eenabling
all
GIS/CAM/CAD solutions.
This helped
them specialise into
security related
technology by
working into a live
environment.
Today, Rolta is
into engineering
and geospatial
technologies,
providing
end-to-end solutions and has 70% market of
GIS/photogrammetry and around 85%
of plant engineering. In the Internet
sector, they provide e-security services.
Rolta has grown systematically
through these years, taking one step at
a time.
Acquisitions/Ventures/ Partnerships
"Currently most companies are associated
with providing end- to-end solutions
rather than building technologies
in isolation and Rolta is no exception”,
says Mr Singh. “We focus on customer
requirements and have built capacity
to do so by joint ventures, partnerships
with other industry leaders like Intergraph,
Thales, Shaw Stone & Webster
and acquisition of companies like
Canada- based Orion Technology."
The partnerships have helped Rolta
to develop a deep understanding of
international markets, continuously
evolving technologies, operate at the
higher end of the value chain and provide
an unbeatable solution to customers.
INTERGRAPH
Rolta's 20-year exclusive
partnership with Intergraph
Corporation, USA, has provided
technology solutions in India with
significant value to both partners.
Rolta and Intergraph have a long
association in the defence
sector and has developed an
in-depth understanding of the Indian
defence requirements. It has
committed substantial resources
which have enabled Indian defence
to fully exploit the capabilities of
the solutions, under demanding
conditions.
STONE AND WEBSTER JV
Rolta's joint venture (JV) with Shaw
Stone & Webster, USA, provides engineering
design services for Stone &
Webster projects globally and engineering,
design, procurement and construction
management projects for
large refineries and petrochemical
companies in India. The JV is very well
placed to capture the huge opportunities
from the emerging nuclear power
sector.
THALES JV
Thales, France JV with Rolta provides
Command, Control, Communications,
Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance,
Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance
(C4ISTAR) systems for Defence, Aerospace
and Security markets in India
and overseas.
CA, MICROSOFT AND ORACLE
Partnerships with Computer Associates
(CA), Microsoft and Oracle have
enabled Rolta to execute over 500 local
and international projects with specific
focus in the areas of eSecurity, network
management, enterprise applications
and software development.
ORION TECHNOLOGY
The acquisition of Orion Technology,
Canada, enables Rolta to own technologies
for taking its GIS offerings to the
next level of sophistication. Orion
employs technologies that allow users
to connect to and integrate geospatial
and non-spatial data from disparate
sources and provides Rolta with a capability
for turning existing GIS investments
of customers into an enterprise
solution.
Growth strategy and future
Mr K K Singh summarises Rolta's
growth strategy in the foregoing paragraphs,
in consonance with the country's
economic growth model. To sustain
India's GDP growth of over 9% per
annum investments in India's infrastructure are expected to exceed
US $ 1 trillion. A majority of these
investments will flow into core
sectors like, oil, gas, conventional power,
airports, ports, highways, utility distribution,
town planning, etc. Rolta is
very well placed to take advantage of
these vast opportunities, due to its
leadership position in the GeoSpatial &
Engineering Design Automation segments.
Over the next few years, in
addition to exponential growth in oil,
gas and conventional power, it is
envisaged that almost 40,000 MW will
be added through nuclear power in
India. This is expected to generate
investments of over US $ 100 billion.
Rolta is strongly positioned to capitalise
on these large opportunities
through its Joint Venture with Shaw
Stone & Webster.
The Indian Defence and Homeland
Security sector has emerged amongst
the biggest buyers worldwide and is
expected to spend over US $ 100 Billion
in the next 5 years. There is increasing
encouragement for the Indian private
sector to participate in defence production
and to assume the role of suppliers
of advanced technology. Rolta's JV
with Thales puts it in a formidable
position to address this huge opportunity
as well.
With its acquisitions and joint ventures,
Rolta's revenue is expected to
rise more than 40% in 2008/09, while
both profit and revenue are estimated
to rise 38 percent. Rolta's goal is to be a
$1 billion company by 2010/11, with an
employee base of 12,000 from the present
4500, with its unique positon in
the markets like geospatial services,
defence and engineering.