Text : Bhargav TS
With the newly opened India Development Centre (IDC) in Chennai, German IT consulting company RheinBrucke plans to tap the growing business of its clients in Europe and West Asia. The reason to set up Indian operations was taken early this year as enterprise resource planning (ERP) company Epicor is upgrading its ERP software and prompting partner Rheinbrucke to expand the services team. The development centre includes the Epicor migration and upgrade factory; currently it houses 70 employees including IT consultants, engineers and developers.
Keith Deane, EPICOR and Fabig, Counsul General Germany
IDC will concentrate on development and delivery of IT services and will be focusing on ERP, in which SAP and Epicor will be their main targets. “Europe does not have enough IT capabilities; in India there are abundant IT talents available and we want to capitalise on it by our new IDC,” says Dr Joerg Pirron, Executive Member of RheinBrucke. “We want to bridge the gap between the demand in Europe regarding IT capability and the highly motivated work force here in India. The local project team will work together with the small and medium enterprise (SME) in Europe, and in India we will have a big development base, which will create a win-win situation for all.”
Asked about benefits of implementing ERP in SMEs, Kumar Mallampalli, Partner RheinBrucke said, “As the world economy continues to recover from its long recession, SMEs are poised for future revenue growth and profits. A well managed ERP implementation can be a continuing source of cost savings and operational improvements which help companies survive and thrive as we emerge from these troubled economic times. And for those SMEs that have yet to implement ERP, the performance gap will widen as ERP solution providers continue to innovate solutions and those with ERP continue to reap the benefits.”
RheinBrucke specialises in the design and delivery of IT solutions that enable companies to thrive in today’s complex environment. While it enables large enterprises to capitalise on global opportunities, its main focus is on mid sized enterprises for business consulting services, ERP consulting and implementation services on SAP and Epicor ERP, IT consulting and services on Microsoft and other Platforms and IP Product Development services.
Pirron says, “SME’s are the growth engine of every economy. As Europe recovers from an economic crisis, SMEs on the continent are beginning to raise their IT spending as they look to cut costs and focus on a digital future. We see a demand gap here that RheinBrucke intends to service. We are confident that the vast knowledge and expertise of Indian IT professionals will lend tremendously to RheinBrucke’s success in the European market by helping our customers achieve a competitive advantage.”
In continental Europe, SMEs account for nearly 64% of business activity. They develop more than 75% of all patents and innovations in the region and are credited for creating over 76% of local jobs. In the DACH region (German speaking Europe), the IT market was estimated to be 76 billion Euros in 2013. A majority of companies in the region are operating IT/ERP systems that were implemented more than 10 years ago. SME’s among these companies specifically have accumulated needs to invest in a new integrated IT/ERP solution within the next 2 years.
Vetri Selvan, Managing Partner, RheinBrucke, said, “RheinBrucke intends to be a leader in this relatively untapped segment of non-native English speaking regions by offering customers on site local consultants with extensive domain, cultural and local language knowledge, supported by the company’s state of the art delivery centres in Koln, Germany and now in Chennai, India. The Indian arm will fuel the growth of the European firm’s consulting business by exporting IT services from Chennai.”
RheinBrucke plans to increase employee strength to 100 by the end of this year and then to double the number of employees every year, over the next five years. IDC is spread over 15,000 sq. feet, which will also support Epicor to migrate its customers from Epicor e9 to Epicor ERP Version 10, which is said to be a most flexible ERP solution that is based on the five principles of Collaboration, Choice, Responsiveness, Simplicity and Mobility.
