Dr L. S. Kanodia – Chairman and Founder, Datamatics Group
Dr. Lalit Surajmal Kanodia, Chairman of Datamatics, is often referred to as the father and architect of the Indian Software and Offshore Services Industry.
With his pioneering efforts and path-breaking innovations Dr. Kanodia has been setting the trend in the Indian software and offshore services industry for well over four decades. Many of Dr. Kanodia's predictions have come true. He had predicted correctly the emergence of India as the back-office hub for document processing, tax and finance processing for corporates across the world.
The governments of India and the state of Maharashtra have nominated Dr. Kanodia on various task forces and committees. In these capacities, he has helped shape the direction of the IT and telecom policies. He has held the position of Chairman (Western Chapter) of the Electronic & Computer Software Export Promotion Council, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India. He has been an Executive Member of NASSCOM, the apex body of the IT-BPO industry in India, Executive Committee Member of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), and Past President of the Management Consultant's Association of India. Dr. Kanodia was also on the Board of Directors of several large conglomerates.
He is currently a member of the board of his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Kanodia completed his Doctorate in Management from the MIT after a post-graduation in Computer Science from the same institute. Prior to that, he was placed among the top rank-holders when he graduated from India's premier technology institute, the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
During his student days at the MIT, Dr. Kanodia was a member of the team that developed and designed the first two multi-user operating systems (CTSS & MULTICS), which were precursors to UNIX. His pioneering streak continued and, in 1967, Dr. Kanodia founded and headed Tata Consultancy Services (1967). History was created again when Dr. Kanodia founded Datamatics in 1975.
Under Dr. Kanodia's inspiring leadership and relentless pursuit of quality in services and customer satisfaction, Datamatics became the first company in India to win the International Asia Pacific Quality Award in the services category in 2007. Datamatics competed against hundreds of companies across service categories from countries like the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Canada, China, Israel, South Korea, Peru and Mexico. Datamatics was assessed on stringent parameters based on the world-renowned Malcolm Baldrige Business Excellence model.
Through Dr. Kanodia's visionary zeal, Datamatics has been ranked by NASSCOM among the top 20 BPO companies in India. The company was also ranked third globally among document processing outsourcing providers and among the Top 50 Best Managed Companies worldwide, out of 872 companies from 63 countries, by the Black Book of Outsourcing in 2006.
Datamatics has the distinction of establishing the first satellite link from India to the USA (AT&T Bell Labs) in 1989 and boasts of having initiated the "dedicate offshore development" concept. Datamatics is also the first Indian IT & BPO company to acquire a Nasdaq-listed company (Saztec in 2000). Dr. Kanodia's very high quality standards has resulted in Datamatics being the first company in the world to guarantee 99.997% accuracy level in Data Capture, the first Information Technology company in the world to reach PCMM Level II and the among the first few to reach SEI CMM Level 5.
Under Dr. Kanodia's dynamic leadership, the company has grown from a team of 10 to a strength of over 2,500 (in addition to 1,400 Associated) across the globe. Datamatics has executed over 2100 projects in 60 countries for some of the world's largest organizations, including five of the top ten Fortune 500 companies.
In recognition of his many contributions, Dr. Kanodia has been personally felicitated by the Prime Minister of India (1999), the State Government of Maharashtra (2000), and the U.S. $170 billion Itochu Corporation, the ITM Group of Institutes, among others.
The Government of Chile has designated him as the Honorary Consul General of Chile in India.
