Satyam-Venture Engineering Services Pvt. Ltd. (fondly known as Satven) was established in the year 2000 with a singular focus & objective – to cater to the varied & complex design & engineering needs of the automotive industry. The company has today grown multifold to become one of India’s leading automotive engineering bureaus. Skilled human resources, consistent quality, broad knowledge base, strategic partner alliances, domain & subject matter expertise, and strong customer relationships have been continuously propelling Satven’s growth into higher orbits.
Satven provides comprehensive solutions to the automotive industry that cover a wide range of engineering activities, including but not limited to full vehicle crash, NVH, durability, concept design, Value Engineering/ Value Analysis (VA/VE), Dimensional Management, Product Data Management (PDM), Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) & customization, sourcing, myriad non-linear and linear FEA, Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), and Multi-Body Dynamics (MBD).
Solutions are typically supported on a variety of software platforms. Satven’s value proposition to customers include strikingly visible reduction in product development timelines, rich domain expertise, cost arbitrage, and quality & information security processes that conform to ISO 9001: 2008 and ISO 27001: 2005, respectively.
Satven is where the rubber hits the road!!
In a recent exclusive interview to MOTORINDIA in Chennai, Mr. Rao S. Vadlamudi, CEO, Satyam-Venture Engineering Services Pvt. Ltd., spoke about the services offered by the company and its global presence. He said: “We offer engineering solutions to more than 40 automotive majors which includes prestigious global OEMs such as General Motors, BMW, Audi, Ford, Mazda, and Nissan to name a few and numerous tier-1 heavyweights such as TRW Automotive, Webasto, Eberspacher, Denso, among others. In the commercial vehicle segment, we work with Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles and Hino Motors. Almost 45 per cent of our business comes from North America, 35 per cent from Europe, and the remaining 20 per cent from the Asia-Pacific region, including India. Almost 50 per cent of our turnover is contributed by OEM sales and the other 50 per cent is from supplier accounts.”
With sales and marketing offices located in the US, the UK, Germany, Japan and China, Satven has over 1,050 employees working for it globally.
In India, Satyam-Venture is located in Hyderabad and Chennai. The spacious Hyderabad facility is equipped with avant-garde hardware systems to handle large & complex virtual assemblies/mathematical models. In place are also sophisticated and high-bandwidth connectivity solutions. Apart from in-house HPC resources, Satven also has secure access to customer supercomputers for exceedingly heavy-duty computations. Additionally, for large projects, Satven can demarcate physical areas as per customer requirements with project specific access restrictions.
A state-of-the-art innovation lab in Satven’s Hyderabad premises helps the company carry out detailed teardown and competitive benchmarking activities as well as different types of studies with physical products close at hand, which helps establish best-in-class product features and assists in adding value every step of the way during product development cycles. In addition, Satven has alliances for activities such as scanning of components and development of prototypes.
Over the years, Satven’s engineers have filed nearly 40 product design related patents, most of which have been approved. Its domain expertise covers a wide range of product lines, including body, closures, interior trims, exteriors, seating systems, braking systems, occupant safety systems, chassis, steering and suspension systems.
Facing challenges during recession
Companies which have concentrated on a single market or solution are typically hit hard during economic downturns.
“When Satven was established we did not want to depend only on the North American market. We strategically invested in people and resources to develop customers in other geographies, notably Europe and Asia-Pacific. We were thus able to add esteemed logos such as BMW, VW, Honda, Mazda, to name a few in these regions. This helps us de-risk our business when one particular region is reeling under the effects of a recession. During such lows, we encourage our people to involve themselves in the company’s research and development activities”, says Mr. Rao.
Future focus
Elaborating on Satven’s future focus, Mr. Rao indicated that the company is developing people in certain niche areas of expertise, which will help it evolve into a complete end-to-end solutions provider. Apart from already possessing rich expertise in design & simulation activities related to myriad product lines, the company has also been developing competencies in areas such as industrial engineering and manufacturing, which is helping it support its customers in supplier development, manufacturing quality audits, costing, tooling, testing, and prototyping.
Satven is poised to take the Indian engineering service industry into the league of automotive consulting and from providing discrete services to complete solutions.
With a CAGR of nearly 25% over the past 4 years, Satven’s annual turnover was about Rs. 200 Crores in the year 2013.