Kamesh Ramamoorthy, Chief Operating Officer, Ramco Systems, joined the company in 1994 as Country Manager of Ramco's Swiss subsidiary. After close to two years in Switzerland, he set up the Global Product Support Division for Ramco. He then took over as Head of Ramco Systems Corporation - USA based at New Jersey. Having consolidated Ramco’s presence in the US and setting the pace for an explosive growth, Kamesh moved back to Chennai to spearhead the global Enterprise Applications business. Kamesh has taken charge as the COO in 2006 and drives Ramco’s global operations. Prior to Ramco Systems, Kamesh was with Wipro Infotech, where he was heading the Western region operations.
Ramco Systems, has delivered enterprise software and services since 1989. It is a global provider, catering to over 100,000 users. The company provides solutions to multiple verticals including banking, insurance, manufacturing, supply chain, aviation, transportation and logistics, healthcare, governance and retail. Ramco’s collaborative solution innovation platform Ramco VirtualWorks - ensures that when business changes, system also changes along. Ramco Systems has been certified for ISO 9001:2000 quality standards, and ISO 27001 security standards.
Replying to Yash Ved of IIFL, Kamesh Ramamoorthy says, "65% of the revenues come from international operations and remaining 35% of the revenue comes from domestic operations."
How do you see IT industry shaping up for FY11?
The IT industry is just recouping itself from the recessionary times. In the last fiscal, we witnessed tough patches in the first two quarters. However, we have seen good revival in the last two quarters. With sustainability and growth in mind, we are working on several encouraging measures, to override the bad market conditions.
Brief us about your growth in Consulting, Enterprise and Outsourcing services?
Our consulting, enterprise, and outsourcing services are all interconnected; this enables us to cater better to our clients. When we approach prospective clients, we pose ourselves as a one-stop shop for all their IT and applicational requirements. This is one major achievement we’ve accomplished over the years. And this is how we have managed to add some niche names such as GE, Bharti Airtel, DLF, and so on to our elaborate clientele. With such strong strategies as our base, we are looking forward to expand our client base in the future.
What is the status on rights issue?
Rights issue is on hold for now.
Brief us about your capex plan? How are you planning to raise the funds?
Funds are raised internally, and we do not face any requirements for additional funds now.
Brief us about your international operation? Any new geography are you planning?
We are now spread in most continents including US, Europe, Asia, Africa, and so on. The latest region we have set foot on is North Africa, and we are quite enthusiastic about this region, because we have realized some very potential clients in many countries in the North African continent. Besides this, work across our other regions is quite fruitful; US and Europe are emerging out of recession.
What is the revenue segment in percentage terms in domestic and international business?
65% of the revenues come from international operations and remaining 35% of the revenue comes from domestic operations.
What are the challenges do you face in international operation?
International operations in general require a lot of investments directed towards understanding the local market trends and other related know-how. We also need to recruit personnel who would be able to assimilate the local requirements. All these tasks require huge funding. And an additional challenge lies in sustaining fixed costs.
What kind of growth do you expect for FY11?
We are expecting good growth, in line with the pace at which the market is expanding now.
Brief us on your quarterly numbers?
Despite facing a tough year last fiscal, we declared break even performance in Q4. Driven by tighter cost control measures and focused approach on emerging markets, we posted some decent profits, which now drives us to focus on sustainability and growth.
What is your current debt-equity ratio?
The debt as on 31March 2010 was Rs.1.32bn, and the debt equity ratio on the same date was 0.79.
Your message to the shareholders?
Our company is slowly emerging out of the red, and we are gradually stabilizing operations. We now continue to strongly focus on outgrowing the industry average and bring about a higher value for the company. Our strategy to improve on revenue mix with an equal emphasis on deals catering to large and SME clients has contributed to our success significantly. This is helping us capitalize on our technology and products.
The company has been working on few large size deals, and we are hoping to reap significant benefits off these efforts, so that we can claim ourselves to be amongst top ERP vendors soon in the near future.