Surging ahead: Fountain Head

Fountain Head Communications is a name to reckon with in the advertising and communications industry. Stared in 1986, this twelve-year old essentially advertising agency has come a very long way both in terms of prestigious projects and infrastructure, with one complementing the other. The Fountain Head Communications' track record includes brands like Ramco, Medimix, Cavin Kare and DishNet to name a few.

"In 1989, we bought our first system, a 286 machine which cost us more than a lakh then," said Mr Sampath, Deputy General Manager, Systems, Fountain Head Communication Pvt Ltd.

Today, Fountain Head Communications has 50 systems, an assortment of 486 machines, Pentium IIs and Pentium IIIs. Fountain Head uses an IBM E Server, a Pentium III, 1 GHz machine with 256 MB RAM.

For its design work, Fountain Head Communications has invested in 5 to 6 printers, again an assortment of Epson A3 size color printers, HP A3 size 4MB laser printers and a few HP Inkjet printers. Two scanners, an Epson and a Microtek, complete the picture, with regards to IT infrastructure at Fountain Head Communications.

When quizzed about future IT infrastructure plans, Mr Sampath said that right now there are no major plans for the immediate future. "Although we have opened branches in Bangalore and Mumbai recently, we've decided to tread carefully considering the market conditions."

While last year Fountain Head Communications had set aside 10-12 lakh for IT investments, this year the figure is around 15
lakh.

"Without IT we can hardly do anything. The organization may run without IT, but where efficiency is concerned, without IT,
we cannot be where are ought to be. And now that we're so used to it, and have come to depend on it so much, I think it's difficult to imagine a scenario where we do not use IT," said
Sampath.