The Hindu Business Line : Keane to expand architectural services

IT services provider, Keane Inc., with three development centres in India, is poised to expand its architectural services now seen to be the next big opportunity for technology solutions companies globally.

The Director of Information Architecture at Keane, Ms Kathleen Kneram, said this is just the beginning of a big opportunity unfolding for architectural services, which seeks to help corporations modernise their IT infrastructure and build applications without disruption to their business.

Architectural services take IT software development to the next stage. By combining consultancy, software architects work at client sites, understand their concerns and design solutions that make a difference to their business. This model differs from the traditional offshoring model as architects reside at client sites and work, she said.

Speaking to Business Line during her visit to Hyderabad centre, Ms Kneram along with Mr Venky Chennapragada, said that this group currently employs about 450 people globally and plans to recruit aggressively to meet the business demand.

Most companies refuse to understand the impact of technology obsolescence and that it has in effect sun set clause. This makes it complex for service providers to partner and work with companies. Through the technology architectural approach, consultants work with companies on site, understand their concerns and then come up with solutions building them block-by-block on a technology platform.

Bringing in a distinction between software and architectural designs, they explained that architecting is one stage ahead of software development. This calls for a thorough understanding of a company's problems and designing what suits them.

Of the 10,000 plus employees Keane with revenues of over $1 billion has globally, it hosts about 3,000 of them in India. It is poised to add about 1,500 people in couple of months.