EskoArtwork inaugurates new development centre in Bangalore

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Bengaluru, India, 5 November 2009 – The new 6,000 square foot office EskoArtwork office in Bengaluru was jointly inuagurated this morning by Carsten Knudsen, CEO of Esko Artwork and Dinesh Chandra, the Managing Director of Esko Artwork, India, 5 November 2009 – The new 6,000 square foot office EskoArtwork office in Bengaluru was jointly inuagurated this morning by Carsten Knudsenk’s fully owned Indian subsidiary. The new office replaces EskoArtwork’s previous office in the same city which the company outgrew in less than 20 months. The larger facility became necessary as Esko’s systems integration development team has gained traction over the past 2 years and a new 24-hour E-support operation is taking off.

Carsten Knudsen said at the opening, “The enlarged Bangalore operation represents a next phase in EskoArtwork’s growth strategy. India is one of the world’s fastest-growing business territories, so it’s vital we have a strong presence in the region – not just from a sales perspective, but also from a development and global support standpoint. The new premises underline our commitment to investing in the Global Resources Centre. We’re dedicated to attracting the region’s talented IT professionals and providing customers worldwide with exemplary technical support.”

The new premises and infrastructure will enable EskoArtwork’s team of programmers, software developers and application engineers to extend the systems integration capabilities and E-support services to customers around the world. EskoArtwork has been active in India since 1996, and for the first ten years focused on developing commercial opportunities in the domestic market. In 2007, the company established the Global Resources Centre (GRC), which concentrates primarily on providing support for sophisticated systems integration projects that are mainly originated in Europe and North America. With India taking an ever-more important role in the global economy, establishing a larger operation in the territory is a logical step in EskoArtwork’s growth strategy. Knudsen is in fact keen that the Centre grows even faster and takes on more local projects.

“Our Bangalore operation gives us a number of significant benefits,” explains Dinesh Chandra. “India is a significant market, and by expanding our office we’re perfectly placed to develop new commercial opportunities in the region. India is furthermore a sophisticated IT hub, and with anticipated continued growth of EskoArtwork we will now be in the position to recruit additional IT professionals." EskoArtwork’s Indian operation has 40 staff, who are divided in two areas: software developers and printing and packaging application engineers. Chandra himself shuttles between Bengaluru and Singapore and runs the System Integration project, while the day to day marketing operations are run by Shrihari Rao, the Regional Sales Manager for EskoArtwork in South Asia.

The Global resource centre’s teams focus on:

· Systems integration: highly skilled developers integrate EskoArtwork software applications with Enterprise solutions like ERP/MIS/PLM systems. As the availability of internet-based solutions continues to grow, so does the demand for effective systems integration to help businesses increase efficiency and productivity.

· Global e–support: a dedicated team of application engineers provide internet-based support via a number of communications channels, such as instant chat, knowledge base and 24/7 call handling.

Carsten Knudsen made several additional points at the press event that followed the inauguration of the new premises – that even while the EskoArtwork was not immune to the economic crunch of the past year, it has continued with its planned investment in India, other acquisition activities, and its high spend on research and development thanks to strong support from its investment backers. In addition, he made it clear that Esko’s Global resource centre was not simply an outsourcing centre but a high level leveraging of the best software talent and domain professionals for the packaging supply chain and for ERP/MIS/PLM integration.

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