Sugar CRM has announced a new partnership with Tata Communications.

The India-based company will now offer Sugar's on-demand CRM services to small, medium and large enterprises.

"This is a mutual partnership," SugarCRM CEO John Roberts told IT Examiner. "Tata Communications is our first major partner in India. The company is the premier information provider in the country and further proof that open source products are successfully covering the planet."

Tata is slated to offer Indian customers Sugar deployments in two configurations: in the cloud or software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. The corporation will manage the service out of its internationally-certified data centres.

"The market for on-demand CRM in India is over $32 million in 2009 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 50-60 per cent for the next few years," explained Alok Bardiya, VP partner and alliance strategy, Tata Communications. "With our world-class infrastructure and leadership in emerging markets, (we are) uniquely positioned to serve this market need."

According to Tata enterprise business president Sunil Joshi, the partnership will enable the firm to offer a high-quality CRM solution to Indian businesses at an affordable price.

"Our broad market reach and managed services expertise makes Tata Communications the perfect match for the Indian market when combined with the best in class CRM capabilities of Sugar CRM," added Joshi. X