The French computer services major Cap Gemini Sogeti SA is one of the first companies in Spain to have set up a unit concentrating exclusively on research and development of new technologies. Cap Gemini Innovation started operations last year and is fronted by Juan Carlos Martinez, who previously spent three years in the same unit in France. Martinez told Computerworld Espana that Cap Gemini Innovation has decided to adopt a twin focus in Spain by specializing in workflow and information highw ays. With respect to workflow, one of its most important lines of approach is based on BPA – Business Process Automation, in which a workflow tool developed by Cap Gemini Innovation, normally Process Weber, is used to model business processes within an organization. These processes are subsequently integrated with the information systems that are designed to provide them with support. Cap Gemini’s main customers here are to be found within the banking sector. There is also a special type of Business Process Automation for when the process being defined is an administrative one, and when the applications supporting this process use image technology. As for the information highways, Martinez said that the research and development unit has developed a system known as Inforoute, the fruit of a project in which the company received assistance from the French government. Inforoute consists of a user interface that gives the end user access to any information server by means of any commun ications channel. Cap Gemini Innovation also has projects in progress which are aiming at the development of highly complex Web servers. The Spanish research and development subsidiary is the first that Cap Gemini has set up outside France, but Martinez believes that more will follow – Cap Gemini Innovation already exists in embryonic form in Sweden, he notes. Revenue of around $3.2m is anticipated from the new unit in the first year of operation in Spain, but this is very much a conservative estimate, Martinez claimed. Out now from Superscape and some resellers, it’s $1,200.
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