The company in its acquisition spree has already bought out 60 companies across the globe in the last two-and-a-half years. In India, apart from software development, it also has plans to buy out companies which are into project management and those that have their own products. Leveraging on its 50-strong worldwide distribution channel and 300 sales persons it has in the US, these products can be marketed globally, said Lason president and chief operating officer, John Messinger.

The company is also targeting India as its global sourcing base. According to Messinger, Lason plans to expand its e-commerce business from $50 million to $350 million in the next three years. To enable the expansion, its subsidiary in India, Vetri Software (India) Ltd would be providing it a workforce of 2000 plus IT related professionals and 250 software engineers in the next two years.

About 400 to 500 people would be trained by Vetri for this purpose in the next one to one-and-a-half years. The rest would be sourced from second-level engineering colleges, especially in south India, said Lason president -data management services and founder of Vetri Raju Venkatraman.

Data management services, which account for 15 per cent of the revenues of the $700 million company, is the fastest growing unit of the company, said Lason executive vice-president and chief financial officer William J Rauwerdink. In the last nine months Vetri brought in business worth $17 million into the company after winning prestigious contracts like Ford, Owens, Chrysler, Net Library etc. The business was mainly in data mining, data warehousing and building large databases for internet content.

In January this year, Michigan-based Vetri Systems Inc was merged with Lason. Vetri was worth $30 million at the time of aquisition. However, Lason officials refused to disclose the purchase amount.