In a bid to increase business from India, the company's Indian subsidiary, Bunka Orient India, is in the process of setting up a state-of-the-art development centre in the country at a cost of around Rs 10 crore. In an effort to pep up software exports, Bunka India plans to set up a fully-owned subsidiary in the US by the middle of next year.

Speaking to The Financial Express, Bunka Orient India's chief executive officer SP Chittora said with its CRM drive, the company expects to do business worth Rs 2.5 crore in the first year. While HCL will focus on marketing the solutions in the country, Bunka would offer training and back-end support to customers. The companyexpects business from CRM solutions to grow at a rate of over 40 per cent over the next three years.

The solutions will be targeted at various industry segments including travel, hotels, automobiles and information technology. With focus on the small and medium businesses, a CRM solution from Bunka will be available for as low as Rs 20 lakh for a 15-user licence, said Chittora. The company has recently sold a 35-user licence solution to Infosys Technologies.

According to Chittora, with businesses becoming more customer-focussed, the market for CRM solutions is expected to be more than that of ERP in a couple of years time. Bunka has a worldwide marketing and support relationship with Canada-based CRM company Pivotal Solutions.

Bunka is also in the process of stepping up efforts to increase business volume in India through software exports. Exports account for 60 per cent of the company's revenue. Most of Bunka's development work is for Japanese companies. However, with setting up of its US subsidiarynext year, Bunka plans to source more development work from US-based companies. "In the long run, of total software exports by Bunka, 60 per cent would be to the US and 40 per cent to Japan," said Chittora.

Bunka is also in the process of upgrading its development centre at Delhi by setting up a state-of-art centre at Noida which will house over 300 developers, said company officials.

Bunka with its expertise in Microsoft platform focuses on component development, marketing and support of development tools such as Active X and imparts high-end training on leading-edge technologies. The $18-million Bunka Orient Group has offices in Japan, China and India.