IT is a very competitive industry. Achieving success in this field demands vision and tremendous amount of determination. Ajit Nair, founder, chairman of the board, and chief executive of PRoV, is no stranger to IT success. Together with his chief information officer and country manager John Killion, he shared to me how his company is achieving rapid growth here in the Philippines.

PRoV International is an IT services company based in Tampa, Florida. Powered by a global workforce to provide end-to-end IT services for enterprise clients, PRoV International employs several hundreds of senior consultants in its Philippine and India Delivery Centers, and Florida headquarters. The Manila delivery center caters to more than 20 countries including Europe and the United States, and is rapidly expanding.

The company’s name PRoV came from Pro, short for ‘‘proven,’’ and Latin word Via which means ‘‘way.’’ Combine the two and we have ‘‘proven way.’’

Through Nair’s leadership PRoV has garnered recognition and awards including being named as one of the Top Businesses by DiversityBusiness.com. He was also honored as the Best MIS and IT Executive in the 2006 International Business “Stevies” award, and was a finalist for the Best Executive Award in the 2006 American Business Awards.

Nair decided to invest in Manila after being wowed by the locals’ professionalism. He was impressed by how well they dressed and communicate, and by their attitude and good tech skills. He also noted how the city is “So Americanized. When you go to a restaurant in the Philippines you would think you are in the States.” The PRoV chief executive is all praises with the suppliers as well as with the government, “I’d rate it a 10 out of 10 working with the Philippine government. It has been extremely smooth.”

One of the things Ajit enjoys doing in the Philippines is client interactions at restaurants. “The quality of food is so good. Feels like New York. Italian, Persian, Chinese, Indian, Spanish restaurants right next to each other.”

The diligent Nair spends his free time—if he ever has one—by going to the country’s beaches. “I believe you haven’t really seen the Philippines unless you see the beaches,” country manager John on the other hand goes snorkeling and scuba diving when he has time.

Perks

PRoV provides its employees with perks. According to Nair, PRoV has a good combination of work and play stressing that quality of life is very important.

John then explained PRoV’s HR initiative called “Great place to work.” At the core of the initiative is enhancing communication between management and employees. It includes presentation of business opportunities, new programs and policies, and encouraging overall interaction with the whole team. Through online surveys management learn what they can do better. It is important especially in supporting employees who go offshore to know what their employees need because the better equipped they are when they go abroad, the better they will do with their work.

Free phones with postpaid lines and financing assistance for gadgets like laptops are available to PRoV employees. At the end of the year loyal employees are given freebies. For those who love to travel, international assignments come easy, according to Ajit because of high growth.

Bootcamp

Initiated back in the States, Bootcamp has played a major role in ProV’s growth. Modified here, it deals with the whole lifecycle of an IT project. It helps newly hired employees integrate with the PRoV family and gives them a bird’s eye view of what to expect once they are out there. Ajit explains that “we need people who can live and work with us and go on international assignments. It’s not all about technology. More than half of the skills required are about dealing with customers from around the globe. And we send a lot of people to other countries. Six months into PRoV and they start to go internationally. The more they know the better.”

According to Killion, “The driver for the bootcamp is to allow us to grow as fast as we want to grow.” The bootcamp is an intensive 12-hours-a-day, three-month-long training process where graduates from IT or computer science programs are certified for certain technologies and immersed in the PRoV culture. To qualify, they first go through a screening process. It is a combination of HR type interviews, technical exams, and psychometric tests. From around a hundred they are reduced to the top 25.

While the goal is a 100-percent finishing rate, not everyone gets through the bootcamp. But those who did with flying colors usually get a significant position in the company.

Giving back

The PRoV family is growing fast. Soon they will have to move to a new home. They are hoping that by the end of the year, they would have moved to their bigger office along McKinley at Fort Bonificaio.

Thankful for its unrelenting growth, PRoV is also active with its corporate social responsibility activities. Just last year PRoV donated a television set for watching educational programs to a day care center showing how the company places importance to education. Nair also explained how hiring and training fresh graduates is giving value back to the economy and ultimately the community.

Barely 18 months after opening its operations center in the Philippines in November 2006, PRoV International is seeking to expand its local workforce. The IT services company is currently enjoying the most rapid expansion rate in its history, a burst of growth due to recent client acquisitions including U.S. based Thermofisher, a company that services pharmaceutical companies, Walki Group, a packaging company in Finland, and Mamut, a Norwegian company that provides software solutions to its clients in Europe.

That the IT Services Company’s international expansion has taken place at roughly the same time that it started its Philippine operations is no coincidence. In fact, Ajit Nair, PRoV International’s youthful founder and CEO, was quick to add that Filipino IT engineers and consultants played a huge part in the company’s continuing growth and expansion overseas. He informed this writer that his Filipino consultants are regularly sent by his company to clients’ offices in Europe and the United States.

“Our clients have nothing but admiration and praise for our Filipino staff,” Nair said. The CEO, a finalist in the American Business Awards’ Best Corporate Social Responsibility Program category, revealed that his company intends to hire more Filipino IT professionals to help it cope with the increased workload.

IT Boot Camp

In line with this, PRoV International’s Manila office has launched its Boot Camp program for newly hired IT professionals. Through this training program, the company seeks to equip its IT consultants with its corporate values, which according to Hair focus on innovation, quality and speed of execution.

John Killion, PRoV International’s CIO and Country Manager for the Philippines, described Boot Camp as a venue for molding new employees, imbibing them with the appropriate corporate culture and equipping them with the required skills and capabilities to perform their tasks in accordance with the company’s high standards.

Killion is encouraging all new college graduates of IT-related degrees to apply for positions with the company. He said that his company does not discriminate against applicants who still have to have some employment experience, or come from lesser known universities and colleges. What his company is looking for, Killion said, are applicants with the right attitude, those who are willing and able to learn the company’s technologies and culture, and are ready to work hard for their and the company’s goals and objectives.

Manila in a Starring Role

Both Nair and Killion believe that the company’s Manila office will continue to play a crucial role in the company’s ever expanding international operations. Nair emphasized that as per his experience, Filipino IT professionals are well educated, dedicated to their work, willing to go and do beyond what their job descriptions dictate, and most of all, loyal. After all, this is the main reason why Nair decided to invest in the Philippines.

PRoV International’s CEO added further, “Our vision is to be a premier provider of innovative IT outsourcing solutions and services, creating sustainable solutions essential for our clients’ business strategies and objectives…” Nair said, “As a company, we have to ensure that in our operations, the way we provide our clients with our services and solutions, we maintain uniform and constant processes.” According to the very successful entrepreneur, each of PRoV International’s offices and staff strives to offer services and solutions that meet the company’s standards and the clients’ highest expectations.

It seems that Filipino IT professionals have found another venue where they can demonstrate the quality of their training and education, and prove that Filipinos indeed, given the proper motivation and opportunity, can excel and be at par with the world’s best.

PRoV International, for its part, has found a reliable source of talented and professional candidates with which to expand its workforce when and where needed. This enables the company to rapidly add to its ranks of well-trained consultants equipped with the right skills, know-how, and most of all, the proper mindset to provide their clients with top-notch services and solutions.

The Department of Education’ s District Office headed by Ms. Maricar Sigrid Blanca with the help of the teachers of Cupang Day Care Center, put together a program complete with prayer, fun and games, while the students displayed their talents through song and dance numbers that they have prepared for the occasion. This was followed by the presentation of Pro V International’s gift to the school with Pro V International’s Country Manager, Mr. John Killion giving a heart-warming speech about the importance of education and talks about Pro V International’s optimism in contributing to Muntinlupa City’s vision of improving the quality of children’s education. Congressman Ruffy Biazon gave his very earnest appreciation speech and acknowledged Pro V International’s contribution to the city’s education program. To complete the day’s celebration, the Pro V International team distributed packed meals and gifts to the children. On hand were the congressman’s wife, Mrs. Trina Reyes- Biazon, Council Woman Ann Soriano, and Solar Sports TV Host, Ms. Reema Chanco. Also present during the whole activity are Pro V International’s Vice President for Sales, Mr. Brian Zaas, Pro V International’s Finance Controller – Philippines, Mr. Saravanan Chandran and Pro V International’s Human Resources Manager, Ms. Cecilia Curameng.

The project was made possible with the support of Liberty Power Corporation and in cooperation with Congressman Ruffy Biazon of Muntinlupa City. – Frances Sophia Ribaño (PRoV International)

Tampa, Florida, July 9, 2007 – Pro V International today announced that the company has been identified by CMP Media’s CRN, vital information for VARs and technology integrators, as a Fast-Growth 100 company. Pro V International recorded a phenomenal average two-year growth rate of 200.57% .

CRN’s Fast-Growth 100 identifies the 100 fastest growing solution providers across all specialty areas and business models. The profiles and data developed by CRN’s editorial staff provide insights into which models and technology are proving to be the most lucrative.

Mr. Ajit Nair, Chairman and CEO of Pro V International quoted, “It is indeed an honor for me and my company, PRoV International, to be recognized as part of this very prestigious Fast Growth 100 List. This recognition truly confirms my team’s commitment and enthusiasm to bring forth fast, quality service to our customers. Being part of this list will only inspire us more to aim higher and aim for more. I would also like to congratulate all my colleagues in this industry who made it to this year’s list and I wish them all the best

“As the channel’s vital resource, CRN is solely focused on the Solution Provider community. This list, created by our editorial team, recognizes the Solution Providers that have worked tirelessly to support their customers. We salute them on their superior growth,” said Robert DeMarzo, Editor of CRN.

“What makes this list so unique, and compelling, is that it represents such a large cross-section of the channel universe. What’s more, this is a dynamic list. While 59 companies that were on CRN’s 2006 Fast Growth 100 ranking made the grade again this year, sheer ingenuity and investment savvy propelled 41 new solution providers to growth rates worthy of the final cut.”

About CRN

CRN gives Solution Providers and Technology Integrators the crucial information and analysis they need to drive their company’s sales. As an advocate for and voice of the Channel, Solution Providers turn to CRN first for immediate information. With more than 20 years of experience, CRN is the most trusted source for 117,000 channel professionals. CRN can be found on the Web at

About CMP Media

CMP Media is a marketing solutions company serving the technology, healthcare and lifestyles industries. Through its market-leading portfolio of trusted information brands, CMP Media has earned the confidence of more professionals and enthusiasts in these fields than any other media company. As a result, CMP is the premier provider of access, insight and actionable programs designed to connect sellers and buyers in each of these industries in ways that yield superior return on investment. CMP Media is a subsidiary of United Business Media(http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com), a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $3 billion.

Tampa, Florida, July 9, 2007 – Pro V International today announced that the company has been identified by CMP Media’s CRN, vital information for VARs and technology integrators, as a Fast-Growth 100 company. Pro V International recorded a phenomenal average two-year growth rate of 200.57% .

CRN’s Fast-Growth 100 identifies the 100 fastest growing solution providers across all specialty areas and business models. The profiles and data developed by CRN’s editorial staff provide insights into which models and technology are proving to be the most lucrative.

Mr. Ajit Nair, Chairman and CEO of Pro V International quoted, “It is indeed an honor for me and my company, PRoV International, to be recognized as part of this very prestigious Fast Growth 100 List. This recognition truly confirms my team’s commitment and enthusiasm to bring forth fast, quality service to our customers. Being part of this list will only inspire us more to aim higher and aim for more. I would also like to congratulate all my colleagues in this industry who made it to this year’s list and I wish them all the best

“As the channel’s vital resource, CRN is solely focused on the Solution Provider community. This list, created by our editorial team, recognizes the Solution Providers that have worked tirelessly to support their customers. We salute them on their superior growth,” said Robert DeMarzo, Editor of CRN.

“What makes this list so unique, and compelling, is that it represents such a large cross-section of the channel universe. What’s more, this is a dynamic list. While 59 companies that were on CRN’s 2006 Fast Growth 100 ranking made the grade again this year, sheer ingenuity and investment savvy propelled 41 new solution providers to growth rates worthy of the final cut.”

About CRN

CRN gives Solution Providers and Technology Integrators the crucial information and analysis they need to drive their company’s sales. As an advocate for and voice of the Channel, Solution Providers turn to CRN first for immediate information. With more than 20 years of experience, CRN is the most trusted source for 117,000 channel professionals. CRN can be found on the Web at

About CMP Media

CMP Media is a marketing solutions company serving the technology, healthcare and lifestyles industries. Through its market-leading portfolio of trusted information brands, CMP Media has earned the confidence of more professionals and enthusiasts in these fields than any other media company. As a result, CMP is the premier provider of access, insight and actionable programs designed to connect sellers and buyers in each of these industries in ways that yield superior return on investment. CMP Media is a subsidiary of United Business Media(http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com), a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $3 billion.

Nicknamed the Stevie® for the Greek word “crowned,” the awards will be presented to winners at a gala dinner on Monday, September 10 in the Munich Marriott Hotel in Munich, Germany. Primary sponsor for the event will be the German State of Bavaria.

Recipients of 98 International Stevie Award trophies were selected from more than 1,000 nominations received from companies and individuals in more than 30 countries. Twenty-five nations have at least one International Stevie winner each, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Luxembourg, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, The Netherlands, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, the U.S.A., and United Kingdom.

Companies from all over the world are eligible to compete in The International Business Awards, and can enter in any of more than 40 categories from Best Multinational Company and Best New Product to Best Corporate Social Responsibility Program and Best Executive.

Mr. Ajit Nair, PRoV International’s Founder, Chairman of the Board and CEO, was the 2006 International Business Awards’ Best IT/MIS Executive. He was also a Finalist in the 2006 American Business Awards’ Best Executive Award and again a Finalist, Best Chairman category in the recently concluded 2007 American Business Awards.

As CEO, Nair is responsible for developing and executing business strategies to ensure PRoV International’s success. He leads a senior management team making strategic decisions with regards to the operational approach and direction of PRoV International in the IT industry.

Nair founded PRoV International in 2003. The following year he has expanded his business to include a training and development center in its headquarters in Tampa, Florida. Shortly thereafter, another development center was established in India. In December 2006, he has successfully opened PRoV International operations and training center in the Philippines. Currently he is in the process of putting up a sales office in the UK and in the Netherlands. Through his efforts, PRoV International is now truly a global company.

Mr. Nair quoted on his achieving Finalist status, “It is indeed an honor for me and my company, PRoV International, to achieve the Finalist status in this very prestigious International Business Awards. Likewise I would also like to congratulate all the nominees and I wish them all the best”.

Members of the Awards’ Board of Distinguished Judges & Advisors and their staffs selected International Stevie winners from among the Finalists, which were determined by volunteer judges around the world during two months of preliminary judging.

“Entries to the IBAs grew 40% this year and that illustrates the increasing importance of The International Business Awards worldwide,” said Michael Gallagher, president of The Stevie Awards, presenters of the IBAs. “We congratulate all of the Finalists and International Stevie Awards winners, and we look forward to honoring them for their achievements at our gala awards dinner in Munich on September 10.”

“Being named a Finalist in the International Business Awards is a very important and meaningful achievement” said Nair. “I consider it a great honor to be regarded as someone worthy of the Best Executive in North America by colleagues in the industry”.

Hailed as “the business world’s own Oscars” (New York Post , April 27, 2005), The American Business Awards are the only national, all-encompassing awards program honoring great performances in business.

Stevie Award winners will be announced during the annual gala on Monday, June 11 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. More than 700 executives from across the U.S.A. are expected to attend. The ceremonies will be videocast on the Internet and broadcast on radio, and hosted by Larry Wilmore of TV’s THE DAILY SHOW with JON STEWART.

More than 2,000 entries from companies of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted for consideration in more than 40 categories, including Best Overall Company, Best Executive, Best New Product or Service, and Best Corporate Social Responsibility Program. MR. AJIT NAIR will be competing in the BEST CHAIRMAN category for the IT INDUSTRY.

Mr. Ajit Nair, PRoV International’s Founder, Chairman of the Board and CEO, was the 2006 International Business Awards’ Best IT/MIS Executive. He was also a finalist in the 2006 American Business Awards’ Best Executive Award.

As CEO, Nair is responsible for developing and executing business strategies to ensure PRoV International’s success. He leads a senior management team making strategic decisions with regards to the operational approach and direction of PRoV International in the IT industry.

Nair founded PRoV International in 2003. The following year he has expanded his business to include a training and development center in its headquarters in Tampa, Florida. Shortly thereafter, another development center was established in India. In December 2006, he has successfully opened PRoV International operations and training center in the Philippines. Currently he is in the process of putting up a sales office in the UK and in the Netherlands. Through his efforts, PRoV International is now truly a global company.

Mr. Nair quoted on his achieving Finalist status, “It is indeed an honor for me and my company, PRoV International, to achieve the Finalist status in this very prestigious American Business Awards. Likewise I would also like to congratulate all the nominees and I wish them all the best”

Members of the Awards’ Board of Distinguished Judges & Advisors and their staffs will select Stevie Award winners this week from among Finalists. Finalists were chosen by business professionals nationwide during preliminary judging in April through early May.

Nicknamed the Steviefor the Greek word “crowned,” the elegant Stevie trophy was designed by the same company that makes the Oscar and the Emmy.

“Being named a Finalist in The American Business Awards is an important achievement,” said Michael Gallagher, founder and president of The Stevie Awards. “It means that independent business executives have agreed that the nominee is worthy of national recognition. We congratulate all of the Finalists on their achievement and wish them well in the competition.”

Details about The American Business Awards and the list of Finalists in all categories are available at www.stevieawards.com/aba.

For a while it seems that almost all the IT jobs that can be outsourced have been outsourced to India, the outsourcing capital of the world. Now, it can be said that the rest of the developing world, the Philippines included, is fast catching up.

In the last few years, the outsourcing train has brought to the country Fortune 500′s offshore call centers and the concept of business process outsourcing (BPO), creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in legal and medical transcription, customer care, back office, animation and other technology-related services.

Experts, however, agree that it is in the areas of software development and engineering design that the country should focus on as these can provide high-value jobs to the country’s highly skilled workforce.

These jobs are coming to the Philippines, in slow, steady spurts but hopes are high that someday the country will corner a bigger pie of the BPO space.

Only recently, a Tampa, Florida-based enterprise application development and systems integration company made the bold move of coming to the Philippines to set up an offshore facility for software and application development.

“We are very bullish about coming to the Philippines,” says Jim Lynch, president and COO of PRoV International. “We can find fantastic talents here.”

Citing the Filipinos’ English proficiency and the comparative cost of doing its backroom work here, Lynch says the bottom line is delivering high-quality work to their customers in the United States and Europe at substantially reduced cost.

Lynch explains that operating a 24 x 7 company is a very expensive proposition for most companies. But it is the way to go in today’s global marketplace and cost management will be more critical as technology moves forward.

Almost every business is 24 x 7 and outsourcing is part of the big picture. The key is to onshore and offshore,” says Lynch. “If we can create a solution that solves 80 percent of the problem, that would be great.”

PRoV International is a relatively young organization, founded only in 2003 in Tampa. It provides a broad spectrum of fully integrated IT consulting and networking services, including infrastructure control and resource management (ICRM)

The company’s core competencies are Siebel, SAP and other business suite implementations in CRM, ERP, data warehousing, and e-commerce. It currently focuses on healthcare but has worked for a range of Fortune 1000 clients in industries such as manufacturing, utilities, education, telecommunications, banking and finance, and insurance.

PRoV’s service package comes with a 24 x 7 technical support and an assurance of uninterrupted operation, faster turnarounds and cost-effectiveness.

The plan, according to Robert Berry Jr., PRoV International’s Philippine country manager, is to hire the best talents locally, bring them to the US for training and back again to the Philippines to develop the applications here.

“By the end of the year, we expect to grow our workforce to about 500,” says Lynch.

Both executives admit though that with the relatively small size of the software development industry in the Philippines, it is quite a big gamble on their part to move their software division to the Philippines from Mumbai, India where they also maintain a development center.

Lynch and Berry, however, are one in saying that the Philippines has an underutilized strength and there is a good amount of room to grow here.

“The business acumen of the engineering talent here is very high and we are pleasantly surprised with the quality of work,” discloses Berry, who overseas the hiring of their Filipino workforce.

“The Philippines is also a major talent exporter. That got to change. We are one of the companies that can invite that change,” he says, referring to the exodus of Filipino professionals abroad.

The vision of Lynch and co-founder Ajit Nair, according to the company’s website, is to employ a global workforce to provide end-to-end IT services for enterprise clients.

Lynch and Berry told IT reporters in a press luncheon that although they initially eyed the Philippines as their offshore base in the Asia-Pacific region, they were also looking at the Philippines as a market.

As a systems integration firm, they believe that their services would be valuable not only to Filipino companies but to those in other Asian countries as well.

“We learn a lot from the different markets that we serve,” says Lynch.

Initially, PRoV is targeting call centers and universities that have a need for enterprise applications and networking services.

The PRoV executives are unfazed by the relatively smaller size of the business in the region compared to the Fortune 100 companies they are currently servicing.

“What we hope to do is to get more undertakings here and grow our whole business in the process,” says Lynch. “We don’t have to take the Harvards and the Cambridges of the world when we can do work for 40 smaller universities and learn and grow in the process.”

Whatever the economists and the politicians are saying in the US and major outsourcing countries, outsourcing is here to stay. Quoting Thomas Friedman in his book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, it is “about being able to operate in, mobilize, inspire and manage a multidimensional and multicultural workforce.”

Friedman recounts that when he was growing up, his parents use to say, “Tom, finish your dinner — people in China and India are starving.” Now he says his advice to his kids is, “Girls, finish your homework, people in China are starving for your jobs.” And in a flat world, he says, “They can have them because there is no such thing as an American job. There is just a job and in more cases it will go to the best, smartest, most productive, or cheapest worker — wherever he or she resides.”

Outsourcing or offshoring has become a political issue in the major outsourcing countries of the world, but the competitive spirit has always driven innovation and global trade since the beginning of time.

Following Friedman’s line of thinking, maybe we can tell our kids, “Baby, do your homework so that someday you will not have to leave home to work. The jobs are coming.”

MANILA, Philippines – United States-based outsourcing and consulting services provider PRoV International is looking at moving a majority of its operations from the US, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom to the Philippines in the coming years as part of its expansion plans.

The company provides an entire list of IT-related outsourced services such as staff augmentation, software development, manpower training, customer relations management, data center management, network security and data warehousing. Their main target firms are retailers, schools and government agencies primarily from the United States.

PRoV International co-founder Jim Lynch told reporters in the Philippines that they hope to migrate much of their services to the Philippines, which means they would be getting more people. Lynch said they are hoping to get about 500 people in the Philippines by the end of the year.

Part of their program is to get software engineers and consultants and train them in the latest software certifications in order to provide services to foreign firms.

TAMPA, Florida-based PRoV International said Tuesday it has chosen the Philippines as the hub for its global and fully-integrated information technology consulting and networking services, In a media briefing,

PRoV International Philippine president and chief operating officer Jim Lynch said the decision was made after taking into consideration that Philippine schools are

promoting advanced technologies, high degree of proficiency in English, as well as the strategic location of the Philippines in proximity to the Asia Pacific region and the country’s stable supply of software engineers.

Although India has a bigger English-speaking population compared to the Philippines, Lynch pointed out the country has an advantage because its accent is more universal in nature.

“English is taught in the schools from a very young age and used in day-to-day life,” Lynch said. “A great majority of the people in the Philippines, young and old, speak English. The English accent of the Philippines is not the typical Asian accent, and much better understood in the world market.”

He added that PRoV International is expanding its sales in the Asia-Pacific region in 2007. The Philippines is hours of target countries such as Singapore, Thailand, China and Australia.

Unlike India, Lynch said the Philippine software industry’s fixed costs are still reasonable and have much room for growth even after achieving a 40 percent year-on-year growth rate in software development.

According to the Commission on Information Communications Technology, the number of jobs in 2006 grew from 12,000 to over 15,600 in a year, while an excess of 300 companies has been recorded in the same period.

“There are very significant opportunities for us in the Philippines and that’s the reason why we have put up an offshore facility here,” said Lynch.

Lynch said Filipino software engineers will be the heart and soul of PRoV because they will be in the frontline of the offshore engineering jobs. “We will bring Filipino engineers to the United States for our projects,” he said.

Robert P. Berry Jr., country manager of PRoV International Philippines, said that there is a huge potential for the country’s software industry.

Berry said PRoV International will raise the bar higher for Filipino software engineers by PRoViding them with internationally-recognized certifications to become more competitive in the global arena.

He said PRoV is also aware of the looming shortage of skilled software engineers in the country. To avoid a future problem for the company, PRoV has partnered with the Technological University of the Philippines (TUP) to train computer engineering students on the latest technologies in IT outsourcing. Under the program, TUP students will have apprenticeship programs with PRoV before they graduate.

With the training program, Berry said the students are now qualified to work in high-end engineering jobs.

“Through our business, we want to reverse the trend of talent exporting in the country in the long run by enabling Filipinos to do offshore engineering jobs here,” he said.

PRoV specializes in customer relationship management, data warehousing, enterprise resource management, on-shore and off-shore outsourcing services and infrastructure control and management.

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/02212007/companies03.html

Tampa. Ajit Nair isn’t your typical CEO. But that’s because, as he’d say himself, PRoV International isn’t your typical company.

With just a couple thousand square feet of office space overlooking the Tampa side of the Courtney Campbell Causeway, it would be easy to think Nair has a small staff, and with it a small amount of income.

Instead, PRoV’s employee base numbers nearly 200 people scattered at different companies throughout the country and even the world. And Nair is proud to say that PRoV has turned a profit since the very first day of its existence less than three years ago.

“We started at the end of 2003, but by 2004, we already were a $5 million company,” Nair said. “We had over 10 Fortune 500 companies. In 2005, we were named High Growth Company of the year by IT Florida.”

High Tech Growing Everywhere

Nair started PRoV with president and COO Jim Lynch after spending years doing similar IT outsourcing for a company he ran out of California until selling it in early 2003.

The growing high-technology market in the Tampa Bay area attracted him here, and he started PRoV shortly after with a handful of employees but plenty of experience. PRoV employs what it calls a global work force that bases its operations in development centers both in Tampa and Nair’s home country of India.

Just as he urges his clients when it comes to IT, Nair says some of the key ways he maximizes profits is through outsourcing.

“Outsourcing is an important part of our organization,” he said, adding that through those different companies, he’s able to hire people from around the world.

“Other companies hire in the U.S. and then export them to other parts of the world, but it’s hard to tell if and when they will show up. For us, India has such a high demand from technical talent looking for work, that we have a large base to choose from”

Nair says his profits have increased at least 10 to 15 percent monthly since the company was founded.

That is not entirely uncommon among high-tech corporations, said Liana O’Drobinak, managing director of Jefferson Wells, a professional services firm that focuses on IT risk.

“Generally, any of these kind of newer market sectors do have high growth, especially with younger companies,” said O’Drobinak. “Those types of businesses tend to be less capital intensive than if their clients would outsource to them the infrastructure of their back office. But it is tough to generalize.”

Going Beyond Profit

The walls on PRoV’s Rocky Point Drive office are filled with logos of various clients, which Nair prefers not to discuss publicly. While his current clients come from all walks of life in terms of industry, Nair said he now wants to concentrate on more niche markets such as health care.

“A lot of the work we already do offshore is in health care,” Nair said. “Some of those organizations’ biggest costs are in operations. When it comes to streamlining, health care firms need that more than anyone else.”

In helping to cut costs on the operations side of health care, especially in insurance, Nair said he believes it will make insurance more affordable to those who have it and make insurance more readily available to those who need it. “These are just wonderful things that you can do,” he said.

http://tampabay.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2006/08/07/smallb1.html