Kusumgar to use IBM solution to up quality

IBM on Thursday announced that Kusumgar Corporates, a lead player in technical textiles in India, has chosen IBM's Smart Business Solution to help it meet the stringent quality standards that govern the technical textile industry.

Kusumgar Corporates, a mid-sized company with 200 employees, manufactures a variety of military, industrial, geosynthetics and recreational fabrics. While Kusumgar maintains a lean IT staff it has sought an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that it could easily manage and maintain. The company selected IBM Smart Business running Infinite's Textile Integrated Manufacturing (TIM) ERP application to allow Kusumgar to focus on its business while IT works almost invisibly in the background.

The Smart Business platform includes access to an online community and marketplace, Web-delivered collaborative services, managed security and hosted backup and recovery, and a single point of contact for service and support. TIM is a plug and play ERP system designed specifically for apparel and textile companies and owns over 70% of the ERP market for the textile industry in India. TIM manages the entire order cycle, from acceptance and entry to invoicing, requiring minimal configuration and customisation. When TIM is matched with IBM Smart Business, clients like Kusumgar can implement a complete ERP solution in just a few weeks.

"Kusumgar chose to run TIM on Smart Business because it would be simple to procure, install and maintain," said Siddharth Kusumgar, president, Kusumgar Corporates. "Now we have a complete, low-cost, integrated infrastructure that we expect to provide us a low total cost of ownership while supporting all of our business needs," he added.

"A significant portion of mid-sized businesses in India don't avail of IT because they feel the complexity will out-weigh the benefits. Our clients understandably do not want to be in the business of IT, but in the business of their business," said Guruprasad Rao, head, enterprise solutions group, Infinite Computer Solutions.

In November, IBM launched Smart Business in the entrepreneurial Indian marketplace, which boasts more than 35 million small and medium businesses. With Smart Business, IBM provides small and medium businesses access to solutions from leading software providers that specialise in specific industries. IBM focused the initial launch of Smart Business on the healthcare and manufacturing industries in Pune and Mumbai. Since then, IBM has expanded across the country while maintaining a focus on those vertical industries.

Said Juhi Jotwani, vice-president of IBM Smart Business, "We launched Smart Business first in India given its large population of small and medium businesses and have since been convinced that the solution meets a real need by enabling companies to more easily leverage technology to better their business."