Overview of KPIT: A Tech Company With An Auto Focus – via Forbes

Forbes has an interesting overview of Pune services company, KPIT.

Some excerpts:

The company, founded in 1990, soon evolved into one of the fastest-growing IT enterprises in the country. Revenues went from $10 million in 2002 to $100 million in 2007 to $444 million in 2014. Profits have more than tripled to $42 million in the last seven years. This performance has earned it a spot on the Best Under A Billion list for the second straight year.

Next stop? It’s targeting $1 billion in 2017.

One of the important ways in which KPIT distinguishes itself from its competitors (including Indian biggies like Infosys, and other Pune companies of similar size, like Persistent) is that it leverages Pune’s manufacturing industry, and thus has a focus on software for the auto/manufacturing industry. This is a USP that that most other Indian software companies are missing:

In the auto sector the company works in a range of areas, including providing software for vehicle safety and developing technology to convert gasoline-powered cars into hybrids.

For instance KPIT offers software that detects when a driver is distracted: turning away from the wheel, say, to look at a child in the backseat or out of drowsiness, elicits warning beeps. KPIT is also developing infrared systems for pedestrian detection.

The company is also jazzing up things on the road. Take its work for Jaguar Land Rover’s sports car, the Jaguar F-type. KPIT has helped in the development of the software that deploys the spoiler at the rear of the car.

Of course, there is competition:

Meanwhile, as KPIT forges ahead it contends with intense competition for software services from midcap IT companies like Mindtree and Hexaware as well as biggies like TCS and Cognizant. And when it comes to auto engineering services, it’s pitted against Ricardo, Bosch and niche German companies in auto electronics.

Keeping up with the competition is hard work, and 12-hour days across the management chain are common.

But:

“We are all workaholics in the company,” says [Chairman Ravi] Pandit. “But it’s not really work when there’s so much excitement. Very few people get this kind of an opportunity to be part of something big like this.”

Read the full article – for much more details.