IT- Hinduja group unveils big plans for Difiance Tech

CHENNAI: The diversified multi-billion Dollar conglomerate Hinduja group, with global presence across 30 countries, unveiled its big plans on
Thursday for its engineering and design services company — Defiance Tech.

It is set to ramp up operations, enter more markets and add more industry verticals. It is also looking at setting up a facility in Bangalore.

The Detroit-based Defiance, founded in 1976, was acquired for $17 million by the Hinduja Group in 2007. Its global clientele include 30 of the global\Fortune 500 companies.

It has 1000 resource pool, largely working in the US and Chennai engaged in delivering high-end solutions . Defiance has a 2.40 lakh sq ft facility in Detroit and it is on par with leading OEMs in engineering, IT and manufacturing services space.

The company has appointed a new CEO — Subu D Subramanian (former senior VP, Satyam) — to support the vision of Defiance to emerge as a global market leader in providing integrated engineering, manufacturing and enterprise solutions (EMEs).

He said the company will utilise the strong manufacturing strength of group companies and their domain expertise to offer a comprehensive range of engineering, manufacturing and enterprise services across the industry value chain leveraging global delivery model.

"Our vision is to be recognised as among top ten global players for solution excellence in less than three years in this space. We are targeting to scale up our strength to 5000 and revenue to $ 250 Million during this period", he told ET on Thursday.

It will be leveraging its capabilities with a 3-dimensional business approach of integrating technology, global service delivery and domain knowledge, Mr Subramanian said.

The group is looking at expanding the scope of Defiance by taking it beyond engineering. From product testing and validation services and design and engineering services, it has included enterprises services and manufacturing as its thrust areas.

It will widen the area of sectoral focus to include automotive, aerospace, defence, industrial and high-tech and general manufacturing. On the locational front, it would now evaluate opportunities in the Middle East and APAC regions besides US and Europe.
The Hinduja group always had a visible long-term plan, signified by the emerging pattern. It has adopted a long-term strategy to diversify and overcome vulnerabilities of the cyclical commercial vehicle industry, Defiance chairman and Hinduja automotive executive vice chairman, V Sumantran said.

Instead of being a plain vanilla product company by confining itself to being a general service provider, "we have aggressive growth plans for Difiance", he said.

Referring to the group’s strengths and the several partnerships that had been forged, Mr Sumantran said the Nissan joint-venture is proceeding quite well.

Increasing use of embedded electronics in vehicles, infotainment and green technology focus had brought in a new era of transportation economics that calls for an integrated solution. The acquisition of Defiance has bolstered its design and service offering capability, he said.

"The other dimension of growth we are seeking is to serve customers beyond automotive to other industry verticals including aerospace and defence," he said, adding if the auto business is all about volume, the aero industry revolves around value, he said noting that globally, and companies are re-orienting themselves.

Under the EME framework, it will offer design-to-build option and shop floor to top floor integration solutions and business process cost optimisation for its customers. "Our goal is to be recognised as among top ten global players for solution excellence in less than three years in this space," he said.

Defiance has 2.40 lakh sq ft facilities in Detroit which is on par with leading OEMs.

Stating that it is not interested to jump into the IT-commodity bandwagon, Mr Subramanian said "we are at the next wave of providing high-value solutions. Our aim is to bring superior value creation for global customers accelerated by innovation and intellectual property creation.".

Globally, Defiance is scouting for talent, creating a network of thoughtleaders. They would be assembled as an advisory pool, who would suggest right investments.