A UK company has become the latest in a long line of firms cashing in on the rich pool of IT skills in India. Guildford- based, SSH Group, which went public in April of this year, is offering companies the chance to have their software developed, or checked for year 2000 and Euro bugs, by a network of Indian software houses. SSH Offshore, one of four of the group’s subsidiaries, is the UK-based organization which manages the relationship between the UK or European customer and the overseas software developers. Companies can request a year 2000 or EMU impact analysis and subsequent code correction for any software application in the market, running on any platform, said Don Blake, managing director of the SSH Group. He said that companies could also outsource the development of new applications offshore, and realize savings of between 30% and 40%. The Group also announced a new partnership with Delhi-based Hughes Software Systems – under the name SSH Communications – which will specialize in developing design software for telecoms products. The third arm of the group, SSH Products, supplies software tools, for any application, to UK and European companies. Blake said the fourth arm, SSH Resources, is effectively a body shop. It imports skilled IT staff from overseas, primarily India, and farms them out to needy companies. He estimated that growing skills shortages in the UK and Europe meant the resources group would account for at least 40% of the overall company’s turnover this year.
