According to Tata Infotech senior vice-president Vijay Srirangan, while TataInfotech provides system integration and appropriate software to customers,Human Factors will design the interface, using research-based principles andmethods from the field of software ergonomics.

Human Factors has set up an Indian subsidiary to exploit the opportunitieshere. The company will have a development centre, with a team of 100-150professionals by the end of next year. The partners have bagged their firstproject in India and work will begin in the next few days.

The companies plan to target telecom, finance, commercial and healthcaremarkets in the US to supply e-business solutions. "We are looking at areaslike Web technologies, imaging, object-oriented and datawarehousing in thesemarkets," Srirangan said. Human Factors will design user interfaces based onuser task analysis and other principles of software ergonomics.

Explaining the relevance of Human Factors, company chief executive EricSchaffer said in the e-commerce scenario, usage of software systems is nolonger confined to corporates but more on consumers. "There is a need fordeveloping high quality software and an interface that makes end-userscomfortable with the whole set-up," he said.

Both officials agreed that there is huge opportunity in this area andmillions of dollars at stake. Schaffer said that like the Japanese madethemselves synonymous with quality of manufacturing, the Indians have majoropportunity in becoming the best and highly-skilled manpower force in thee-commerce area. "Indians can become e-commerce merchants," he said.

He cited the example of Staples.com, which underwent a facelift afterconsultations with Human Factors, and was able to record a $600,000 rise insales. The company has clientele like AT&T Universal Card, Barnes & Nobel,Bell Canada, Ford Motors, MCI WorldCom and Fedex.