| Company of the Year |
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Progressive Infotech, Delhi
Progressive’s strong growth performance, and focus on new technologies and services, won it the CRN Company of the Year Award for 2009.
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Dhaval Valia, Executive Editor, CRN, presenting the award to Vineet Kumar, Sales Director, Progressive Infotech
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Despite the slowdown, Progressive logged an impressive 15 percent growth on the back of its strong emphasis on high-growth segments such as data center solutions, remote infrastructure management, and virtualization.
The company has charted a new path by expanding its operations beyond Indian shores to leverage on the systems integration and managed services opportunities in the international market with a direct presence in the UAE and Singapore.
Progressive is among the few organizations in India to have achieved Integrated Quality Management Services comprising three quality standards: ISO 9001, ISO 20000 and ISO 27001.
In FY 2008-09, Progressive posted a turnover of Rs 182 crore over its previous fiscal’s turnover of Rs 158 crore. The solutions business contributed 65 percent of its revenues followed by corporate reselling which brought in 20 percent and services 15 percent.
“Last year we expanded our reach to 110 locations in the domestic market to provide integrated services which are a mix of remote management and on-premise services,” said Prateek Garg, CEO of Progressive Infotech.
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Performance Highlights
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• Under the eCourts project, armed nearly 15,000 Indian judges with notebooks and computer tools
• Won a 5-year contract from Punjab National Bank for branch computerization and the management of IT infrastructure
• Expanded reach to 110 locations in the domestic market
• Opened a subsidiary in the UAE
• Augmented its 50-seat NOC to provide a wider bouquet of services to large multi-locational customers
both in India and abroad
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Company Snapshot
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Company: Progressive Infotech
CEO: Prateek Garg
Year of inception: 1998
Branches: 10
Turnover 2008-09: Rs 182 crore
Turnover 2007-08: Rs 158 crore
Employees: 803
Certified employees: 525
Principals: HP, Symantec, Microsoft, VMware, Red Hat, Wipro, TVSE, Epson
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The company augmented its 50-seat NOC based on HP Open View to provide a wider bouquet of services to large multilocational customers both in India and in international markets such as the Middle East and Asia Pacific.
“We focused on improving our operational efficiencies and introduced the total customer experience process. This helped us do well even in a difficult economy,” explained Garg.
Last year also saw the company get into the emerging technology areas of unified communication solutions as well as information security and data availability solutions.
With revenues from BFSI at 25 percent, Progressive won its largest project ever for the branch computerization of Punjab National Bank. Spread across 5-years, the contract also includes the management of IT infrastructure.
In the government and PSU sectors which contributed 40 percent to the company’s revenues, Progressive bagged the eCourts project, an initiative by the government to automate and digitize courts across the country. In the first phase of this project, Progressive has armed nearly 15,000 judges with notebooks and computer tools. In the second phase it will work toward automating and digitizing the various components of the vast Indian judicial system.
Another project in this sector, worth Rs 3 crore, was to provide a document management system on HP Unix for a public sector organization across its various offices.
The next project, worth Rs 1 crore, for a large FMCG company, involved remote management of a data center, including its power and cooling systems.
Progressive also executed a data center virtualization project for a leading tyre manufacturer wherein it consolidated 30 servers into three. The project was worth Rs 90 lakh.
Modeled around the philosophy of value creation for customers, Progressive re-positioned itself in 2008 with a new logo and brand personality. “This re-positioning was necessitated by the impending fast growth and global expansion that was on the radar for us,” Garg explained.
The company not only invested in aggressive online advertising on high traffic sites but also took the events route—it sponsored some major media events to create a brand in the market.
The quality consciousness imbibed by the company during its difficult times makes it one of the few channel companies that can boast of a long list of certifications. These include ISO 9001, ISO 20000 certified for infrastructure services management, ISO 27001 for information security management, and the PCMM Level 2 compliance for HR processes and excellence.
Progressive is now on its way to achieve the PCMM Level 3 certification. Insistence on quality processes has also led the company to automate its operations using ERP, CRM and integrated service management systems.
Progressive is equally conscious about enhancing the skills of its staff. It devised training programs in collaboration with its alliance partners. “We have regular training programs conducted by technology experts; the programs are supplemented by our inhouse technology school. For fresh management graduates we have something called the Turtle Club,” Garg said.
Besides this, Progressive runs e-learning programs as well as managerial development and mentoring programs to develop future managers within the organization. To help employees manage customers better, it has designed programs about customer handling skills and customer sensitivity.
Following its vision of growing into a Rs 1,000 crore company, Progressive has started developing its global footprint. “Last year we opened a subsidiary in Dubai, and have already started pitching for large systems integration and IMS projects in the Middle East and North Africa. We plan to make an acquisition in the US to bolster our IMS play there which will be supported by our NOC in India. The acquisition will help us provide customer interface and onsite services capabilities,” Garg informed.
The company now plans to open a fully-owned subsidiary in Singapore to cater to far-eastern countries.
Progressive is now looking for a strategic partner who will invest capital to provide wider access to global markets, and bring in management and technology expertise.
On the solutions side, it will continue to focus on unified communications and the remote infrastructure management model. Progressive will also target the education market, which is a new vertical for the company.
l Methodology l Outstanding Channel Contribution l Systems Integrator l Solutions Provider - Integrated l Solutions Provider - Networking l Solutions Provider - Software l Corporate Reseller l Systems Builder l Retailer l Sub-Distributor l Solutions Provider - Emerging l Sub-Distributor - Emerging l Retailer - Emerging l Managed Services Provider l Solution Provider - Security l |