However, the company has announced its intentions that only 30 percent of its sales would be channel driven while the remaining 70 percent would be done through direct selling during the first year of its business in India. So far the company has appointed sales partners in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and is planning to scale up their head count mostly in states where manufacturing and retailing units are located.

According to Ashish Kamotra, CEO, Adapt India, the company is looking for partners in the western and southern regions, while the northern region would be initially taken care of by its direct sales force. The company is looking for partners who possess good understanding of software and business processes related to it.

"Selling solution is poles apart from pushing a box item in the market, which calls for special skills. The company we would consider for partnership should have good contacts in corporate environment, in addition to possessing an experienced services squad," he added.

Adapt is looking for value-added resellers in Ahmedabad, Pune, Kochi, Hyderabad, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Chennai, among others. It intends to open branch offices in Bangalore, Chennai and Ahmedabad by the end of 2007. In India, Adapt faces competition from CRM vendors like Oracle, Talisma, MySap, Sales Logix and Golmine.

On the market share Adapt would like to reap from its India business, Kamotra said, "CRM adoption in India is still in a very nascent stage due to numerous inhibiting factors. Hence we are not eyeing for very big numbers. We are aiming for a modest 5 percent market share by the year 2007."

According to an IDC survey, the CRM market in India is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 40 percent by 2006 while the CRM services market is expected to grow at a much faster pace and would touch 53 percent mark.