Couple of days back i wrote a post of how size does matter in IT Services players, so how are the smaller players reacting, both of them seem be planning a lot around Chennai (South Indian City, My hometown)

Mastek:

Mastek will hire 5,000 professionals for a new campus at Mahindra Industrial Park in Chennai. In the first phase, which is expected to be completed in the next one year, the company will recruit 1,100 professionals, it said in a release today.

The company also said it is building a centre of excellence at the recently launched Chennai facility to acquire competencies in mainframe technology, mainly in the insurance vertical.

TVS Infotech:

TVS Infotech, the IT consulting and services subsidiary of Sundram Fasteners, is now in a scale up mode having built a core team, domain expertise, execution capability and a customer base. The company with its offshore development centre in Chennai, is focused on offering ERP services on SAP platform to SMB and SMEs in the domestic market and application development and maintenance services to customers of BFSI and life sciences in the US and Europe.

Vinod Krishnan, MD, TVSI told ET, " The next three years will be a defining period for us for ramping up operations in the domestic and overseas markets. We have a team of 250 and expect this to reach about 500 by 2007 end. By 2010, we are shooting for a team of 2000 and hope to become a Rs 100 to 150 crore company".

Krishnan said the contribution of SMBs and SMEs to Indian economy is increasing fast. They dont' want to be left behind big players in the booming market and have even started competing with China in the export market. With IT biggies chasing big customers, TVSI wants to be a niche serious player in SMB segment.

It has identified this as a big market for offering valued based business consulting and IT services. He said it is mainly targeting firms doing a business of Rs 10 to Rs 100 crore a year, which have already invested in IT infrastructure and and prepared to invest Rs 15 lakhs to Rs 70 lakhs on ERP to be more competitive.

" Right now, we are implementing SAP package for 30 companies drawn from engineering, textiles, trading, retailing and training fields. We want to be a niche player leveraging on our capabilities, group's legacy, the strong TVS brand and the domain expertise", Krishnan said.

He said it is also setting up marketing offices in Hosur, Pune and Gurugaon to get more customers. Besides the existing offshore centre in Chennai, it might build another SDP here. It expects domestic business to claim 20%, US 60% and Europe 20%.

Source: 1, 2

Prashanth Rai