Fastest Growing SP (GOLD): Allied Digital Services : Fastest Grower First

Mumbai-based Allied Digital Services bagged the Gold award as the Fastest
Growing company. It registered a 90 percent growth in 2007-08, by posting
revenues of Rs 297 crore in 2007-08, up from Rs 156 crore in the previous
fiscal. And what made this growth noteworthy as per the jury members is the fact
that it is much more difficult posting a growth of this nature when the turnover
base is bigger. Besides this, it also won brownie points from the deciding panel
for its consistent performance over the last couple of years.

Its profits after tax too has been registering a healthy growth going up from
Rs 23 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 44 crore in 2007-08, while its operating profit
went up from Rs 33 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 69 crore in 2007-08. The solutions
business contributed Rs 225 crore last fiscal up from Rs 123 crore in 2006-07.

The contribution of services to the overall business more than doubled last
year, with services bringing in Rs 71 crore in 2007-08 as against Rs 31 crore
the year before. In the last quarter (JFM) of the fiscal year, the solutions to
services ratio stood at 72:28, which is why the company is now focusing
increasingly on services this year as well and is specifically working on
retaining the clients who contributed to its services revenue.

Nitin Shah of Allied Digital Services receiving the Fastest Growing SP Gold Award from Rakesh Khazanchi, Associate Director-Value Business, Xerox

“I believe services are going to determine how most of the solution providing
companies will perform or even survive during these tough times,” said Nitin
Shah, CMD, Allied Digital Services. “Luckily Allied has been at the fore front
of getting into the services business well before others and you can see how it
has helped us in continuing to post healthy growth over the years.”

One key attribute which contributed to this growth in revenue was the fact
that the company went for an initial public offering (IPO) in July 2007, issuing
Rs 45 lakh equity shares for face value of Rs 10, raising Rs 86 crore.

It was an eventful year for Allied in 2007-08, as the company acquired an
80.5 percent stake in En Pointe Global Services LLC as well as a majority stake
in Bengaluru-based Digicomp, which offers reverse logistics, technical support,
customer care, warranty services, etc.

Besides this, it launched its remote management services center consisting of
a network operation center (NOC) and information security operation center (SOC)
at Mumbai. It also started its liasioning offices in Sydney, Australia and New
Jersey, United States of America. By going international, Allied hopes to be
able to garner a good market share in the overseas business by offering its
services at competitive prices leveraging the lower cost of technical manpower
in India. However, with the current slowdown, this strategic decision would
probably call for a rethink.

Vinita Bhatia

vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in