Brian Keane to run a company with a China focus
Brian T. Keane, who left the Boston technology services firm Keane Inc. under a cloud two years ago, has resurfaced as CEO of a private equity-backed Wakefield company focused on outsourcing software applications and services to China.
The company, set to be relaunched Wednesday under the name Dextrys, seeks to be the leader in a fragmented Chinese tech-services market that’s poised for rapid growth.
Dextrys’s motto will be ‘‘Making China Easy’’ for US companies farming out software and services operations. Research firm Gartner Inc. estimates the market in China will be $6.1 billion in revenue this year and projects it will nearly double to $12 billion by 2012.
‘‘This market is just in its infancy,’’ Keane, 46, said. ‘‘Today about 80 or 85 percent of the world’s outsourcing is going to India. But a lot of companies feel they’re overexposed there. China is the new frontier of opportunity.’’
With wage inflation, employee turnover, and the rise of the Indian rupee against the dollar, ‘‘India fatigue’’ is taking hold, said Keane, whose former company had a strong presence in India.
He said China today provides software application and product engineering services for about 10 to 20 percent cheaper, on average, than India. And companies buying technology services in China, where the government is providing subsidies to service providers, often can gain a foothold to sell their own products there, he suggested.
Keane resigned from the company bearing his family’s name in 2006 after two female employees accused him of harassment. He denied the allegations. But the company paid $1.14 million to settle one complaint and an undisclosed sum to settle the other.
Keane Inc. last spring was acquired for $854 million by Caritor Inc., based in San Ramon, Calif., which then took the Keane name.
Dextrys has about 1,400 employees — 200 in Massachusetts, another 200 in San Francisco and Atlanta, and the rest in China. Its management team in Wakefield includes 10 veterans of Keane Inc.
(By Robert Weisman, Globe staff)
