DVT creates presence in India

Local software development company DVT has created a presence in India to tap into the vast skills market in the world’s second most populous country.

DVT recently opened an office in Delhi by entering into a partnership with Keith Milner and Ashish Choudhary. “Milner and Choudhary have specialised in the Indian market for a number of years now”, says DVT CEO Chris Wilkins, “and we are delighted to have both of them on board”.

Milner is based in South Africa, and Choudhary is based in Delhi.

“South African companies already have an appetite for certain Indian software skills,” says Wilkins, “and DVT has the skills and management experience to complement Indian technical capabilities. There is an immense depth and breadth of technology skills in India. Used correctly, these talented people offer complementary services to the highly competent, but scarce and sometimes less experienced skills we have in South Africa.

“We have seen many South African customers make use of Indian skills and resources, and we believe there is a clear and well defined opportunity for us to tap into.”

India has become the world’s most attractive destination for software development outsourcing, a process known as offshoring. India is popular not just for its skills level, but the price differential relative to US and European developers, and the fact that companies can “follow the sun”, in developing for half the day in the US or Europe, and half the day in India.

Mumbai and Bangalore, to mention just two examples, each have more than 100 large software companies trading, with the number of developers running into the hundreds of thousands. In total, India has more than 3 300 software companies operational around the world, offering more than 5 100 solutions. The top three companies – Tata, Wipro and Infosys – generate collective revenues of more than R100 billion and employ more than 300 000 people.

Among its 130 universities, India is blessed with a number of technical universities, similar to the US’s MIT, and they create the reservoir for India’s great talent pool.

“We have been very impressed with the skills levels we have seen in India,” says Wilkins. “We have been in India for six months and employed eight application developers, who are already active, allowing us to grow our business through offshore development. Apart from enhancing our skills base in South Africa and allowing us to attract new business here, we may also aim to attract offshoring business from Europe.”

Wilkins does, however, express caution when dealing with India “India is not a silver bullet, and Indian skills are not always going to work in South Africa” says Wilkins. “Picking the right projects and clients sounds obvious, but is it crucial to any successful partnership utilising Indian professionals”.

DVT has based its solutions business model on Microsoft and Java development skills, and has a strong record of delivering software development projects on time, within budget and according to specifications.