Internationally KPMG has arrangements with Cisco and Microsoft. ``In India, the company will partner with selective companies to jointly deliver solutions to our clients'', Dalal said.

KPMG is in the process of finalising a partnership with an Indian infotech company to provide solutions to a UK-based client of KPMG. Dalal, however, declined to reveal the name of the Indian infotech company.

Initially, such partnerships are expected to be on a fee-sharing basis, but could be developed into joint ventures, depending upon the business potential in that business segment. Dalal said another emerging business area was advising Indian infotech and bio-technology companies on overseas acquisitions: "We are getting many enquiries from Indian companies looking at acquisitions abroad. The biggest challenge for these companies is not buying a new overseas company, but how to handle the cultural differences and the staff, which is already stretched to the limits." Indian companies have to be very selective while acquiring companies abroad, he added.Dalal, who established KPMG's India business in 1993 before shifting to London in 1997, said KPMG's priority for its Indian operations is organic growth. Sridhar Iyengar succeeded him in 1997 and was head of Indian operations till he returned to the Silicon valley last month.

Dalal, who has now come back as the CEO, says that KPMG has set a 500 per cent growth target between now and 2002. It plans to achieve this target through strategic acquisitions and significant broadening of Indian corporate client base.

The firm will focus on five key strategies - the line of business (LOB) approach, each client is a market, moving up the value chain, targetting Indian companies whose size, ambition, inherent quality, and business potential is of international standards, and investing in acquisitions.Major shake-out in dotcom space in the offing
There will be a "significant shakeout" in the dotcom industry in India. Dalal said dotcom companies must realise that they are technology enablers, who change the way the business is done, but there is no change in the businesses as such. They remain the same. He believes that highly focussed business-to-consumer (B2C) dotcom companies have a bleak future as bigger players, with a wide range of services, will elbow them out due to economies of scale. However, business to business (B2B) dotcom companies have a good future. "There will be a consolidation process in Indian dotcom industry. Quite a few dotcom companies will close down," he predicted.