Mumbai, Nov 27 :    Mumbai, Nov 27:  The A. V. Birla group flagship Grasim Industries Ltd is hiving off Birla Consultancy and Software Services (BCSS) into a separate company. BCSS is Grasim's software division and it could signal the group's increased thrust in the knowledge-based industry where software has been identified as a major area. Grasim informed the stock exchanges that its board will be meeting on Wednesday to consider the issue. BCSS provides both onsite and offshore software consulting and outsourcing services to organisations in the developed markets. As of March 2000, the division contributed less than 11 per cent of its turnover of Rs 4,273 crore. The Grasim scrip today soared on the bourses and closed at Rs 248.55 after opening at Rs 237 and rising to an intra-day high of Rs 251.10. The counter witnessed 6,572 trades with a total turnover of Rs 20.46 crore. Market circles, however, said the rise in the scrip was part of the overall bullishness in cement stocks witnessed in recent times. Cement contributes to over 31 per cent of the company's revenues. In January, the Lawson Competency Centre was set up as a division of BCSS following a tieup with the US-based company. The centre markets a range of e-business applications and e-business advanced technology for business-to-consumer and business-to-business solutions. The other services offered by BCSS include software development, large and medium size software developments in manufacturing, finance, telecom using client server architecture and multimedia. The division is also into multimedia applications, web/Intranet solutions, devising web strategy, application solutions and module design. BCSS has a team of over 200 software professionals of which 150 of them specialise in client-server. Within BCSS, the tieup with Lawson was part of the group's thrust in the services sector. This was part of an effort to focus on knowledge-based industry. The other areas targeted by the group includes financial services and retail brands. Lawson, which is headquartered in the US, posted a turnover in excess of $ 270 million. Its client list include Fortune 500 companies such as McDonald's, Warner Brothers, British Gas, Ralph Lauren Inc and Johnson & Johnson. Grasim had then announced that the competency centre would also provide support services to the Lawson's subsidiaries, affiliates and customers initially Asia Pacific, with plans to extend globally within their areas of cooperation. Under the agreement, BCSS will deliver to Lawson various other applications which included e-procurement, e-supply chain, e-human resource and e-customer relationship management. Following the tieup, Ashok Sand was named as the CEO of BCSS. Since then, Sand has been overseeing the operations of Lawson Products Competency Centre.