“American quality at Indian prices”
Paalam Inc.
offering outsourced IT enabled services

    Globalom Media

The scene in North America and Europe before the Technology bust was: "surging revenues, strong profit growth, lucrative new contracts and a massive recruitment drive". It is no longer happening there but in a different part of the world, the so-called "third world developing country", India. India is generally considered as global leader in outsourcing-based, IT-related businesses. Indian service is both affordable and dependable. Yes there are risks with operating a business overseas but the potential gains and minimal investment makes it a bet even the most conservative poker free player would take.

In India software firms are flourishing with booming outsourcing business from some of the world's leading multinationals. As a result, the export revenues of India's software services market reached $6.2 billion last year, up from under $500m in the mid-1990s.  

This is as a result of the companies in North America and Europe interested in finding ways to cut costs. Labour accounts for more than 75 percent of the cost of developing software, and the market for highly skilled IT professionals is very tight in the United States

The overseas software development and testing software has become the trend. Outsourcing projects or part of the business processes to international or offshore locations has become popular in the last five years.

Big companies such as American Express, BT Group and others have outsourced everything from accounts payable and receivables, collections, customer care and call centres.

Anthony Horton, the Canadian vice-president of business development for Vertex Customer Management Ltd, a UK-based leader in third-party off-shoring, working with GE Capital recently acquired a 1.000-seat customter –contact centre in New Delhi. He says India has “a highly educated English-speaking labour force… One hundred per cent of those working in our India location are university-educated, so you get the benefits of lower labour costs and highest quality.”

India has become a “prodigious exporter of their remote services: as skilled software coders and accentless call-centre voices; as long-distance sales-people and invisible insurance clerks; as diligent medical-record transcribers and patient number-crunchers. Multinational financial firms have been among their best customers,” wrote a columnist in the Economist.

For some companies, there is always a feeling that there is risk in direct outsourcing. The answer was provided by the launch of Paalam Inc. to ensure clients that they do not bear the perceived risk. It brings the benefits of offshore model without the risk of dealing with a foreign firm. Paalam means "bridge" in Tamil and Malayalam.

Paalam Inc. is an Atlanta based company offering outsourced IT enabled services. “It is  dedicated to providing cost-effective outsourced software and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) solutions.

Dr. L. Narsi Narasimhan, a former professor of Management Science and Management, widely recognized in Atlanta not only as the founder of Indian Professionals Network, but also as an one who serves on the board of quite a few influential community associations and companies, is one of the principals in the newly launched Paalam Software Services, an upstart that promises to offer “American quality at Indian prices.”

Narsi brings to Paalam his prodigious startup experience and vast business networking skills.

The other co-founders are Manoj Mehta, Krishna Kushwaha, and Mr. Len O'Neill.

There are so many big companies dealing with Indian-based companies and some of them operating their own companies there. The evident question is: what Paalam Inc. sees as its role?

Manoj Mehta, one of the co-founders and VP - Business Development, cited a few specific reasons that attract companies such as Paalam to this niche of software outsourcing:

a) The projected growth in the Indian IT sector: According to a NASSCOM-McKinsey Report, the Indian IT exports will grow seven fold in the next seven years. This seems like a reasonable projection since the current Indian IT sector is less then one percent of the global market.

b) Outsourcing will be favored over immigration: Post September 11, the U.S. is experiencing reluctance towards immigration in general. Under the circumstances, U.S. companies will not have the benefit of H1-B tech workers as before; and as such, to stay competitive, American industries will consider outsourcing as a natural alternative.

c) Sales in the U.S. is the weakest link for Indian IT firms: There are only few large Indian IT firms that have a strong sales organization in USA. Most Indian IT firms do not have the market familiarity to build a sales team in the USA. They either send their existing staff or quickly pull the plug on their sales team before they have a chance to advance the sales process. Thus, sales and marketing are the weakest link. The success of the project depends on a good U.S. based project management and implementation team. India-only outfits have not known to do well.

Paalam, as a closely held private concern, has much more flexibility and adaptability than industry behemoths. These leaders such as Tata, Infosys, Satyam, and Wipro are engaged with corporate America leaving companies like Paalam to go after mid-tier clients.

For startups such as Paalam, it’s a fiercely competitive arena, but Mehta says they are up to the challenge, citing their aggressive sales approach as what energizes them.

As an Atlanta based offshore outsourcing company, Paalam intends to bridge the needs of their clients here in US in the areas of IT enabled services with the talent pool of Paalam’s partner locations in India and other countries.

Paalam works with the clients to formulate offshoring strategy specific to the client’s needs and helping them execute it.  This results in reduced development cycle, achieving faster time to market while reducing the total cost of ownership for the client. In addition, Paalam takes on the risks of delivering high quality and timely results.

The bridges are in the form of partnerships that range from offshore project teams to remote development centers. In the BPO arena Paalam helps their customers outsource non-core business operations that help the client’s lower costs, while improving their service quality and increase their shareholder value. For software services, Paalam’s focus is on Software Testing and Quality Assurance.

Co-founders: L. Narsi Narasimhan, Manoj Mehta, Krishna G. Kushwaha, 
Shivkumar Shah, Leonard F. O’Neill

Bio of Paalam Co-founders

L. Narsi Narasimhan, Ph.D.  Chief Executive Officer Co-founder

Narsi is a former professor of Management Science and Management Information Systems at the DuPree College of Management at Georgia Tech. In 1993, after 5 years with Tech, he became an entrepreneur and advisor to several startup firms including, Business Oriented Software Solutions (boss-solutions.com), Add2Home, SoftQuiz, Dilato, Burton Training Group, Buildspan, and the Chennai (India) based Proalgen Biotech Limited (formerly ACL Chemicals Ltd.)

He is very well known in the Indian American community in Metro Atlanta as the founder of the Indian Professionals Network.  He attended the Regional Leadership Institute (RLI-2000) by the Atlanta Regional Commission.  His business networking skills should come in very handy in his new venture.

Krishna G. Kushwaha, Ph.D. Co-Founder

Krishna has 25 years experience in software engineering, technology, R&D management, including 13 years in strengthening and setting up offshore development centers for three well known companies (NCS Pearson,  CyberCash and Nortel). 

Krishna has a proven record of building, motivating and leading large  and diverse teams and achieving high performance delivery operation. His latest involvement was with NCS Pearson as VP of Offshore Development reporting to CIO.  Prior to that he was EVP of R&D at CyberCash reporting to CEO.  In his last role at Nortel, he was a Technology Director for Access Networks reporting to the VP of Access Networks Technology.  He had various management and technical roles in his long career with Nortel. His strengths are in ensuring high quality timely delivery to the clients.

Manoj Mehta, Co –founder, VP of Business Development

Manoj has an MSEE and MBA and has a very strong technical background ranging from hardware design to system software development and Project management. He has complete lifecycle development experience on various technology products and systems. Manoj also has Big-5 consulting experience with Deloitte Consulting and was with BellSouth in their wireless division.

Manoj has 15 years of strong technical background ranging from hardware design to system software development and project management with Big-5 consulting firm. Manoj’s expertise is in helping clients analyze their needs and recommend solutions.

Shivkumar Shah, Co-Founder

Shiv has 11 years of experience which includes technical business development, lead generation and supporting sales teams. In addition he has market research and project consultancy experience as well as real estate and property law experience. He holds a law degree from India.

Leonard F. O’Neill, Jr., BS Met.E., MBA Co-Founder

Len is an experienced strategic planner for joint venture partners. Len is also global product and market manager that includes winning project proposals in Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Guatemala and the USA.

Len has 20+ years of experience in product design and development, manufacturing processes, marketing, business development and strategic planning. He is a former global product and market manager that included winning project proposals in Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Guatemala and the USA. Len is also an experienced strategic planner for joint venture partners.

For more details visit:  www.paalam.com 

Top