Polaris’ confidence stems from the fact that it has solutions for all aspects of the banking and financial-services community — ranging from those for retail and corporate banking to those for the broking industry.

Polaris offers two value propositions to its clients. One, it offers an extremely modular solution — 57 components to be precise — which can cut down deployment time by 40%. In the services’ industry where time-to-market is a premium, Polaris’ solution promises to build applications faster.

Two, its solutions can be deployed even in a legacy environment in a non-disruptive manner. A major concern amongst banks is the introduction of new-age applications on legacy systems that host mission-critical data and applications. Polaris helps its clients overcome that challenge with an offering based on the principles of service-oriented architecture.

This value proposition stems from the fact that Polaris’ target audience — large banking and financial institutions — typically have legacy systems and a constant need to provide new services and applications. These customers require a very high degree of customization, which traditional players cannot offer as their solutions are not very modular. Naturally, higher degree of customization requires higher service support.

One of Polaris’ largest customers is Citigroup, contributing close to 60% of Polaris’ revenue (as on Q3 2004). Polaris is not only the sole solution provider to Citibank, India, but it was also closely involved in the implementation of solutions in Citibank, Europe. Today Polaris can count on as many as 23 different Citi concerns amongst its customer base, and it is still gunning for more Citi business. Small wonder then, that Polaris views the Citi Group as not a single customer but as an entire marketplace.

Polaris’ association with the CitiGroup has a lot to do with its emergence as a specialty player: first as a promoter, then as a client, and now as a shareholder. Its masterstroke was when it acquired Citibank’s IT division in India, Orbitech, a Citibank subsidiary and Citibank Overseas Software, also called COSL. The move not only gave Polaris a huge leap in its domain knowledge, but also the rights to the IPRs of the various components it helped Citibank to build.

Armed with the IPR and domain knowledge, Polaris could position its offerings as financial technology. This clearly spelt a change in the perception of technology, from a mere enabler at the periphery of the client’s business, to be now able to bring about transformational changes in the client’s business.

Arun Jain CEO, Polaris

Other than Citi, Polaris has at least five other banks with which it shares equally deep relations. Its customer base includes names such as Deutche Bank, ABN Amro, Lloyds TSB, Bears Sterling and JP Morgan Stanley.

The company is still largely an India-centric company with development centers in Chennai, Hyderabad, Gurgaon and Mumbai. But it has established business continuity centers in Singapore and New Jersey. Last year it also set up a center in Ireland. It has a total of over 6,000 employees with about 5,000 based in India and the rest overseas.