You have traditionally been a hardware company. What are your plans for the software and e-commerce initiative?

We will focus on building infrastructure for e-commerce and software development. We will invest in software rights in messaging, electronic data interchange and internet-related applications. We are promoting more software development centres, opening centres in West Asia, Europe, US and Australia through joint ventures, creating e-commerce resource centres and setting up electronic payment gateway for corporates. A new development centre is being set up in Navi Mumbai for e-commerce operations. The number of developers at the existing development centrewill be raised from 350 to around 1,100 within two years. We are planning to have a development team of around 3,000 people in a span of five years. Another plan is to expand the Pune base.

How are you funding the expansion programme?

The entire expansion plan will be funded through internal accruals and there will not be any fresh issue of equity for this purpose.

Which other new areas is Global looking at?

Another area of opportunity will be the emerging trend of call centres. We are building the necessary infrastructure to handle call centre requirements of major multinationals and Indian corporates. BPL and Johnson & Johnson are some of the existing clients of this service. Customised software is also being developed.

Who are the potential clients for call centre services?

Call centres will be in demand by direct to home (DTH) service providers as Global expects more and more television viewers to switch over to this facility once the government grants permission. Banksare another potential users for this value-added service.

Global is working on a payment gateway to enable banks, financial institutions and other corporates to do transactions on a secured network. About Rs 12 crore is being invested to expand the network across the country.

Users of the electronic payment gateway can log into the system using their password and do the transactions, again with the safety of passwords and other safety means. The e-gateway is a major opportunity for Global since users will have to pay a percentage of the transaction conducted to the company. We expect more and more corporates to use this secured gateway, which will result in a recurring fee for us. Payments are secure and this will have direct impact on the bottomlines of the companies. Companies having bulk payments and presentation will be highly benefited.

Has Global entered into a strategic alliance with any foreign major for this business?

The expertise of VeriFone, a Hewlett-Packard Company, will be usedfor the security of the network while Equifax will look after credit cards-related requirements. We will take care of most of the other aspects.

What are Global's major overseas projects?

We doing major infrastructure projects in New Zealand, Singapore and Mauritius. In Iraq, the company is working under the United Nation's oil for food programme for building telecom infrastructure in that country. In 1998-99, the company had a software export turnover of Rs 22.67 crore mostly to US and Europe while the global subsidiary, International GTL had revenues worth Rs 80 crore during the period.