Kanbay International is focusing on enhancing its value chain and concentrating on the business of end-to-end interaction, realising that India's cost-competitiveness is being threatened by other emerging economies. Cyprian D'Souza, joint managing director of Kanbay e-solution Center (KeC) in Pune, told IANS, "what most companies want is a Web interface which can interact with customers, suppliers, employees. But if we look at large companies (which is the market Kanbay is looking at) - such as Citibank, Household, American Express, United Airlines for example - most of their data is in the mainframe. They cannot do away with that because they have invested millions of dollars in setting it up, but their customers, suppliers and employees want Web interface. Somebody has to be able to do that and we want to be in that business - to be able to integrate mainframe and Web interface." The IBM WebSphere Solution Centre set up in partnership with Household International is an effort in this direction, Mr D'Souzasaid and added that centers are also being set up in Paris and the United States.

Also in the pipeline is a rapid application development centre for Morgan Stanley in New York. "While the basic design of this application development center will be done at New York, the program will be developed at the Pune center," he said. Both Household International and Morgan Stanley have recently acquired equity in Kanbay. Household International is a leading provider of consumer finance, credit card, auto finance and credit insurance products, while Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Co is a leading financial services company. Kanbay is a global e-enterprise integrator that enables businesses to excel in the digital economy. While Kanbay headquarters are in Chicago, the company's facility in Pune, the KeC, is the design and development center for Kanbay worldwide. Situated in a 70,000 square feet facility, it has an earth station, dedicated satellite links and a 5,000 square feet area for an in-house learning center.