Data storage vendor Hitachi Vantara is setting up a new global delivery centre in India, according to a senior official.
“With REAN Cloud acquisition, we’ve already increased our presence here. We expect our business in India to double over the next 12 months,” Hans-Peter Klaey, Chief Revenue Officer at Hitachi Vantara, told
Primarily a data storage vendor, Hitachi Vantara is betting on India’s growing data appetite and is looking to become a significant player in not just data storage hardware market but also services related to data management. “Data is the greatest asset. We see a big shift towards digital transformation in India. We are betting on sectors such as financial services, media and entertainment among others,” Klaey said.
To support its business growth in India, Hitachi Vantara is setting up a new delivery centre in Hyderabad, which would be operational in the next couple of months. The company has also hired Sumanth Tarigopula as VP for global services to head the Hyderabad operations.
“We started with a workforce of 150 last year. Through the REAN Cloud acquisition, we added another 100 people. Now, we are looking at a workforce of over 1,250 over the next 12 months,” Hemant Tiwari, VP and Managing Director for Hitachi Vantara India & SAARC, said. (In October 2018 it acquired REAN Cloud LLC, a global cloud systems integrator, managed services provider and solutions developer of cloud-native applications across big data, machine learning and emerging internet of things, according to information on Hitachi Vantara website.)
Partner ecosystem
“We are increasing our workforce at every level. Apart from that, we’ve created a new partner ecosystem that was lacking previously. For this, we are working with large Indian system integrators such as TCS and Infosys as well as smaller regional players such as Sterlite Technologies, which has a strong presence in North India.
The new partnerships are helping Hitachi Vantara enter new segments and bag big orders. One such was a defence contract through Sterlite Technologies that involved infrastructure modernisation.
Parent firm Hitachi already has a large presence in India for several decades
"We see tremendous opportunity in India. We are doing well in government projects in the last two months," Klaey said.
The focus on India is a part of a larger strategy of the Hitachi group, which saw group CEO Toshiaki Higashihara talk about accelerating digital solutions business in India. Overall, Hitachi group has revenues of about $1.6 billion in India.
“Our CEO is betting on India and we are leveraging multiple business entities within the group to grow our presence in the country,” Klaey said.