The Hinduja Group's design and engineering arm, Defiance, is on an expansion and diversification spree. Stung by the slowdown in the automotive space, especially in the US, the company is now moving aggressively on the defence and the aerospace front.

It has even appointed Subu Subramanian as the CEO and it is looking at newer markets.

Signing new clients won't be easy with established players well entrenched, which is why Defiance is also keen on a $15-$20 million acquisition in the aerospace segment to grow the business inorganically and also tap into an existing client base.

Dr V Sumantran, chairman of Defiance Tech and executive VP of Hinduja Automotive, said, "We should be looking at fairly significant growth in headcount. We would not be positioning ourselves as a general IT player. I think there are different companies who do that very well. We will position ourselves as unique niche solution provider."

Defiance will graduate into full-fledged manufacturing and enterprise solutions for automotive clients. It is also firing all cylinders for defence, aerospace and construction contracts and the effort is to expand in untapped markets of Europe, Middle East and parts of Asia Pacific.

Hinduja's global footprint on the automotive design and engineering was boosted by the acquisition of Detroit Based company called Defiance Testing a couple of years ago and now they are building on its capabilities. The company plans to increase the workforce from 1,000 at present to around 5,000 and is aiming for a turnover of over $250 million dollars in the next two to three years’ time.