FACTSHEET |
CEO: Lynette Saldanha Address: Dubash House 15, JN Heredia Marg Ballard Estate, Mumbai — 400 001 Tel.: 022-2616378/2623906 Fax: 2673036 |
One
of the most focussed "network integration" companies,
Datacraft RPG almost doubled its business in 1999-00 by
leveraging on the buoyancy in the ISP market and deployment of
large networks. The lion's share of 55 percent came from the
"happening" carrier (read ISP) segment.
The preference for
Datacraft is because its parent company, Datacraft Asia has
handled most of these technologies around Asia. So the company
is already comfortable in technologies that other Indian
integrators have just started learning. It tries to transfer
this in-house expertise to its
engineers in India.
It has been able to get
business and retain best technical teams because of its focus on
network integration. Coupled to it is its excellent relationship
with its principal Cisco, for which it is a preferred partner in
the Asia Pacific. It is also a Cisco Training Partner and has
already trained 1,000 people in the last three years. For that
matter, Datacraft RPG has the biggest pool of Cisco certified
engineers.
The company bagged a
majority of projects from A category ISPs. Noteworthy among them
are expansion and upgradation of:
-
Satyam
network based on WAN switches -
Backbone and
access network for VSNL -
End-to-end
networking for BSES, Pioneer Online, and Ontrack Delhi
Other major projects
included integration of LAN at GE call centre in Gurgaon,
a datacenter for CitiBank based in Delhi, WAN network for
Stock Holding Corp. of India Ltd, and billing and customer care
solutions for Hughes Ispat and Hutchison Max. The company did
good business by implementing contracts for Cognizant
Technology, Emphasis Software, Think Systems, Baan IT Park, and
STPI, Delhi.
The company has a
leadership position in implementation of cable ISP projects in
the country. Datacraft has built network for Siti Cable, a
subsidiary of Zee TV in two locations in Delhi and Bangalore for
10,000 subscribers each; Hathway Network, a Raheja Group company
in Mumbai and Pune for 10,000 subscribers; and Incable, a
Hinduja group company. Datacraft's facilities management
clients include Reliance, Mahindra & Mahindra, and VSNL.
It formed a separate
consultancy division for project designs and network planning.
With demand for call centres picking up, it is planning to be
more aggressive on that front. The company also has plans to
provide full support to companies who plan to build network
infrastructure by integrating their supply-chain management,
knowledge management, and customer relationship management to
carry out e-commerce.
However, its real challenge will be to
prove itself as a credible integrator in the traditional carrier
segment (fixed/cellular), traditionally dominated by the telco
equipment vendors.
Growth in the isp
market and setting up of networks by corporates helped it double
its turnover figures.