DigitalThink's global development hub to be Hyderabad

By Our Corporate Bureau | 21 Feb 2004

Hyderabad: DigitalThink India Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based $43 million DigitalThink Inc, is expanding its Indian operations. The company is planning to shift a majority of its custom courseware development and content delivery work, which is done in its US centre, to its Hyderabad development centre.

According to Srinivas Prabhala, director, DigitalThink India, the company plans to develop the Hyderabad development centre (HDC) into a global development hub as it is satisfied with the infrastructural facilities that the city offers.

Speaking at a press conference in Hyderabad, Larry Blair, vice-president (professional services), DigitalThink Inc, said that the company also planned to invest a substantial amount of money in the Hyderabad centre. However, he declined to disclose the amount of the proposed investment.

The company also plans to increase its headcount from 140 professionals at present. The company also has a development centre in Bangalore with 60 professionals. According to Blair, the company is looking for project managers and product managers.

The company has so far invested around Rs 10 crore in the development centre in India.

DigitalThink India provides custom e-learning solutions, and focuses on delivering the right combination of custom courseware development, content delivery and industry-specific expertise.

DigitalThink started its Indian operations by acquiring two Indian firms — Hyderabad based LearningByte International and Kolkata-based TCT — two years ago. The company employs 400 professionals globally of which 200 are in India.

Blair also said that the company has developed the courseware over thousands of hours and has fine-tuned a process methodology that produces the most effective custom e-learning courses, ranging from off-the-shelf content catalogue to innovative 3-D simulation training. The company not only delivers content over the web, but has also developed a total learning environment that is both interactive and collaborative. It has so far delivered around 6.1 million courses.