Continuous transformation has been the hallmark of our journey over the last 25 years. Starting out with a small team focused on working on database internals, we have transformed into a global Company focused on helping our customers become software-driven businesses. And the journey continues.
This was our twenty-fifth year of business and we ended the year with revenues of INR 23,123.31 Million and profit of INR 2,973.61 Million. The quarter ending March 2016 was our 100th Quarter and we achieved the important milestone of crossing $ 100M revenues in one quarter.
As we look forward to the next phase of the growth of the Company, we find ourselves extremely well-placed in the midst of exciting shifts in the market. For the last two years, we are focused on Enterprise Digital Transformation where we are helping our customers transform themselves to become software-driven businesses and helping them respond to the changing environment and demands. As connected devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) have started to become important, we have significantly enhanced our offering in enterprise digital transformation this year when we announced an alliance with the IBM Watson IoT business in February 2016.
This alliance strengthens our relationship with IBM, our largest customer, as we take over the engineering responsibility for the continuous lifecycle management product suite. The vision for these products is compelling as leveraging the Watson IoT platform, the “things” will reconfigure themselves in the field, and will monitor, measure and share their parameters with the global cloud in real-time. With sophisticated algorithms that are part of the Watson analytics platform, customers will be able to optimize the performance of these devices in the context of millions of other objects (things) in the field. This revolution will improve the way we manufacture, distribute and operate every system that is known to mankind. We are very excited to be a part of shaping this revolution.
During the year, Accelerite, our products brand made two strategically important acquisitions — Aepona from Intel and CloudPlatform from Citrix. These two products, along with the Radia End-Point client management product which we acquired from HP a couple of years back, were the mainstay of the Accelerite business and our IP portfolio.
As we combine forces with IBM to deliver continuous life cycle management for things, and with additions from Aepona and CloudPlatform, we have established new development centers in several locations across the world, setting us up to be a truly global Company.
Product development, however, continues to be our focus. Our experience and DNA in product development has become extremely relevant in the market. With a focus on transformation, not only traditional product companies but also innovative enterprises are keen to become software-driven businesses. This has enhanced our addressable market significantly. The speed of execution and the ability to deliver incremental updates to a large number of things on the internet will define how next generation software will be built and deployed.
With our alliance with IBM, we have added an engineering team that is building products and tools for continuous lifecycle management and has helped large enterprises enhance their processes to deliver speed and efficiency necessary for next generation software development.
To set ourselves up for future growth and to ensure that we are able to meet the requirements of our customers, we have reorganized ourselves into four business units effective from April 1, 2016. The Services business will focus on our traditional business model of outsourced product development and will deliver services to the requirements of our customers, the Digital business will build solutions for enterprise digital transformation, the IBM alliance will focus on all our IBM business and the Accelerite business will be our products business. These four business units will be supported by the Corporate Operations business unit. Each of these business units will be led by a President who will have complete responsibility for sales and delivery and will operate their own P&L statements.
Geographic expansion was the hallmark of this year. We added Belfast and Colombo in October 2015 and from April 1, 2016, we added Raleigh, NC, Costa Mesa, CA, Littleton, MA, Hillsboro, OR, Ottawa in Canada and Guadalajara in Mexico. From June 1, 2016, we added Edinburgh, Scotland and Rehovot, Israel. We also upgraded our facilities in Santa Clara, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
I am proud to report that Persistent Foundation continued their stellar work of making a difference to society. Fulfilling our promise of building toilets for more than a hundred municipal schools, installing solar panels for Pune Railway Station and significant contribution towards watershed projects were the hallmark projects of this year.
As we complete our first twenty-five years, we are excited at the prospects and the opportunities that are ahead of us. Our investments in technologies for Enterprise Digital Transformation and the Internet of Things, our alliances and partnerships with market leaders, and our global team of nearly 10,000 Persistent people has set us up well to work with enterprises that are in the midst of transformation. As we extend our offering beyond our traditional customers — from those in the business of software to those who are becoming software-driven businesses — we are excited about how we will transform and are ready to meet the challenges that lie ahead.
Finally, I thank all our shareholders, customers and employees for their continued support and assure them of our sustained best efforts to ensure the success of Persistent.
Sincerely,
Anand Deshpande, Ph.D.
Founder, Chairman and Managing Director
