Speaking to The Financial Express, Mr Urs said the company was also working out options for structural reorganisation in view of the IPO and had also identified a ball-park figure of $40-50 million to fund its acquisitions. The likely overseas acquisition targets were, consulting companies and software product firms, especially in niche areas like supply chain management, CRM and database management, he said. GISI also recently acquired a small Bangalore-based firm -- Crystal Solutions -- which has been incorporated into the group as a subisdiary as -- eGenisys India Pvt Ltd.

The company will develop skill sets in the areas of Internet consulting, graphics and Web-enabling of legacy operations. "Since we are based in the UK, our major market has been the UK/Europe region. We are now starting operations in the US. The strategy for us is to currently focus on building up the bottom line reserves and get the US operations going at a good speed, before our IPO and acquisitions materialise within 18 months time," Mr Urs said. Following its foray into the US segment, the company has also registered a new firm in the US -- Genisys Software Inc -- which will have significant operations in the US market and also serve as a incubation center to create an infrastructure closer to the customer. Close to $1.5 million is likely to be invested in the US operations in the first year.

As part of the planned structural reorganisation, Mr Urs said the three arms of the company -- Genisys Software UK, GISI and Genisys Software Inc would be consolidated, depending on the exchange the company lists on. "If we list on the Nasdaq, the US and the Indian arm will be merged, while the UK operations will become the subsidiary, with India as the headquarters. In the event of an LSE listing, the UK operations will take over the Indian and US operations," he said. GISI currently fouses on providing solutions in the financial services, retail, telecom and manufacturing segments. Healthcare will also be a new area of focus (especially in Europe/Middle-East).

The company is also mulling the option of acquiring a healthcare product company overseas. While the UK arm serves the marketing operations, the Indian operations host the main development centre for the company. A major portion of both the UK and the Indian arm of the company is held by UK-based industrialist Mr Ashok J Rabheru. On financials, Mr Lingaraj said the company was targeting minimum revenues of £6.5 million (approximately Rs 45 crore) as against £4 million (Rs 30 crore) last year.

Boost to offshore devt centre model
Gisi Is looking at adopting and strengthening its offshore development center (ODC) business model for its clients, especially in the financial services segment. The company has spent close to Rs 22 crore on its development facility in Bangalore, which has a capacity to house 1,100 software engineers. GISI is looking at having ODCs for close to twelve of its large customers, four of which have already been established. The company is pursuing a strategy to broadbase its business activities and build competencies in products, solutions and get into IT-enabled services, according to Mr Lingaraj.