September 30, 2002
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I welcome you all to the 16th Annual General Meeting of Kale
Consultants Limited this morning. The Director's report, Auditors
report and audited accounts with notes thereon are with you
for some time and request your kind permission to take them
as read.
Last year the IT industry worldwide faced significant slowdown with many of the players showing negative growth. The Airline industry was particularly affected due to the September eleven events and the aftermath of diminishing passenger traffic and loss in revenues. The clouds of potential conflict in our subcontinent affected prospective client visits and business. This challenging environment presented an adverse scenario for Indian software companies.
Under this backdrop, your company has not only registered
robust growth, but also delivered on the promises of meeting
both the revenue and profit targets. Your company crossed
the Rs. 500 million revenue mark this year registering the
growth of 43.8%. We were able to increase revenues while controlling
the expenditure to 11.5%. We managed our receivables while
increasing the cash generation from operations. The Company
thus registered profit after tax of Rs. 20.26 million as compared
to loss of Rs.67.31 million the earlier year. The spread of
revenue and clientele around the world provide your company
the needed spread across the customer and regional dependencies.
This would ensure the stability amongst the present turbulent
environment.
We continued to win new clients worldwide while ensuring repeat business from our existing clients through customer-focused teams. This was possible due to the key initiatives of creating sustained competitive advantage through – having our own IPR, creating able teams, building domain knowledge and establishing our global brand. These efforts have already started showing the anticipated results. The Company has entered into a development and commercialization agreement with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to jointly develop a revolutionary product called "CEO Cockpit" targeted at Airlines CEO's and top management. Your company has won laurels on international fronts for its products and services. It has earned the recognition both from its clients and the industry associations alike for its excellence and innovation. The ATTIS 2002 award for the “Best revenue accounting system provider for Airline industry” and Computer World laureate award for enterprise cargo management solution are world-class recognition for your company.
Our banking division also completed some very demanding projects in tight time frames and delivered innovative application solutions for mission critical business needs of our clients. Our clients have specially recognized our colleagues for their competent and dedicated efforts to help them achieve their business objectives.
Your company has always been on lookout for new growth potential
avenues and has proactively pursued these opportunities. Last
year we had set up an Managed Process Services Center (MPS)
at Mumbai to provide outsourced business process services
to the airline industry. This BPO initiative has proved to
be quite well timed, as we have been able to convince Airlines
about advantages of outsourcing and the list of clients for
this center is expanding. In this economic climate Airlines
prefer to outsource than have the infrastructure of processing
in-house. The BPO also provides your company with steady multiyear
predictable revenue streams. Our own award-winning product
Revera, used at the center gives us that unique advantage
of offering the most advanced solution for our clients while
building strong entry barriers for the competition.
We have been systematically putting together the key elements of a winning company - excellent product offerings; good reference clients, responsive delivery teams, dynamic managers and focused marketing. We would continue to invest in the product offerings and new initiatives to provide us with the unique sustainable competitive advantage. The future of our business looks rich with possibilities and we would continue to strive hard to covert those possibilities into reality. The market size for BPO activities is estimated to be over $3 billion for the airline segment alone. With our IPR led initiative in this segment should give us sustainable advantage over our international competition.
I take this opportunity to appreciate our clients for trusting us to provide innovative solutions to them. I thank the Investors, Bankers, RBI, NASSCOM, and various government authorities for the constant encouragement and support throughout the year. I also like to thank the efforts of all the Kale Consultants colleagues for their total dedication and hard work. I am sure that with continued support and focused efforts we will build a future that all of us will be proud of.
Thank You,
Narendra H. Kale
Chairman,
Kale Consultants Limited |
