The Hyderabad-based Granules India Ltd, a fully integrated pharmaceutical formulations manufacturer with the world's largest granulation capacity, has entered into an agreement with SQL Star International, an IT knowledge and enterprise services organisation, to outsource its entire informational technology (IT) management to SQL Star.

The strategic contract will include Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution deployment, radio frequency identification (RFID) solution, process control systems integration and implementation, and IT facilities and operations management.

SQL Star will integrate Granule's processes across the entire supply chain, finance and HR covering operations spread across Granule's headquarters at Hyderabad, three plants in India, sales and marketing office in the United States and the logistics, distribution and technical support network globally. This ERP implementation is scheduled to be operational from July 1, 2006.

Krishna Prasad, managing director of Granules India, said, "Interactions with SQL Star were marked by credibility, collaboration, a clear business understanding and a 'non-sales' approach, putting them on a completely different platform than the others."

Granules India is into manufacturing of several active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and multiple pharmaceutical formulation intermediates (PFIs) and is in the process of setting up a world-class facility to manufacture finished dosages of tablets and capsules. The company facilitates global pharmaceutical companies to offer affordable medicines to their consumers.