RM on a growth curve

The New Indian Express, 6 March 2004 - IT @ weekend by Kamal Gopinath

Mike Greig
Group Finance Director

Forty seven year old Micheal D. Greig, the Group Finance Director of RM Plc, is number three in this leading educational info-tech service provider of UK. Being appointed a Director in 1989, currently he holds also holds responsibility for information systems and legal affairs. Prior to joining RM he was Finance Director at Case Group Plc. He is also a non-executive director of Comino Group Plc, a provider of software based business solutions for occupational pensions, social housing and local authorities. IT @ weekend caught up with Micheal earlier this week during his visit to the Group’s subsidiary at Technopark, RM Education Solutions India Pvt Ltd.

On India Plans: As you know we started our Indian subsidiary last May and currently we have 50 professional sin place with the average age being 28. Forty eight per cent of these are post graduates. The rationale behind starting India operations was to reduce cost of research and development programmes; improving the economics of some project bids; and facilitating higher levels of service to customers. We plan to increase the man power here to 150 professionals by the end of 2004 even while identifying other opportunities to improve business models. We also commenced India operations because we were confident of getting high quality manpower here.

RM Plc in 2003: 2003 was a year of good progress. Group turnover for the year went up by 7% to 215.5 million pounds. Turnover increased particularly from our core educational ICT markets. WE delivered 4 significant projects during the year even while making progress in broadening our business in to educational services. We are starting the financial year (2004) with a record order book and in excess of £25 million in deferred revenue.

On BPO resistance: The ongoing resistance to outsourcing will not affect RM’s plans. The current resistance has more to do with call centres rather than software development units like ours. No London employee of ours has lost jobs owing to India operations. Further, the resistance is more in the US as it has higher unemployment figures compared to UK and also because it is an election year in that country. But I believe that in the long run a lot of jobs that involve close physical contacts will remain in the host country. However, with the underlying economic of business process outsourcing being compelling, change is but inevitable.

On Education: Even though the educational needs of England, Scotland and Wales have certain variations; it is still a national curriculum in the UK unlike in USA where each of the 55 states has different curriculum and systems of education. This is one of the reasons why we have not moved in to the US market yet. Back in the UK, we have introduced a successful interactive white board programme which has been received enthusiastically by the teachers in different schools. Though we have reached only 10% of the schools so far, the acceptance of it is growing rapidly. We are also in the process of implementing the first large scale computer based test in English schools for 14 year olds for Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) which is a statutory body. The test delivery of this first national online eAssessment service for the curriculum subject begins in June 2004 and will go on till 2008. As many as 600, 000 students in 4000 secondary schools will be covered under the programme.

Our exploration of Indian market is still at the research stage. However, we are in the process if identifying some schools in Trivandrum to partner some schools in London under the Global Gateway Programme.

On Ranger Suite: We acquired Sentinal Products Ltd, the developer and distributor of the Ranger suite of educational network management tools, last month. Ranger provides a set of tools and utilities designed to support network managers. The acquisition of Sentinal Products adds another well regarded educational brand to RM’s shelf and builds our intellectual property ownership.