Strong stuff

Fire in the hole

2011-07-01T18:40:00.005+05:30

You get into a hole in between. This hole where you have the power to view things objectively and yet somehow feel a sense of identity with one of the sides, which you feel the need to express in order for a larger audience to understand you. And by understanding you, you wish to bring about a change in their mindset, a slow measured change, however infinitesimally small. That sense of identity is, of course, being Indian. And that power to view things objectively may suggest on innumerable occasions you should be criticizing the very fabric of our society. Our dated beliefs, dependence on communities, our deep-rooted prejudice against anything that changes us and challenges our beliefs, our disdain for public welfare and a lack of sympathy for a stranger. But you dont. Thats for kings to do. The kings who have, in their quest for self-actualization and truth, embarked on a journey to be perfectly rounded, objective and scathing in their criticism of non-liberal and non-cosmopolitan views. Kings lose touch with their subjects. They fall into this circle where only fellow kings appreciate their wisdom. The connection can and should never be lost. Hence your identity as an Indian prevails over your quest to become a king. As an Indian, you move to defend, within a certain a realm of reason, the way we are. The solution can never be to change 1.2 billion of us. We start by stemming the rot of a few. We need our kings, no doubt. But a king should never come to rule us. It can only be an ordinary Indian, with all our abhorring flaws. As for you, the person in the hole, it will always be a challenging existence.

Paradox

2011-05-03T18:51:00.004+05:30

Damn end of another season. Scantily low reasons. If only things didnt go this fast and this blandly. I seem to be getting a new point of view on things every few months. Thankfully the rate of change has slow down courtesy of age. Finally that thing called hope has been killed. Most often people ask, how can someone survive without hope. Well, thats the matrix-type funda. Well not really, but thats how you generate hope. Through illusion. Society calls it disillusioned and Einstein said something like the worst thing a man can do is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Disregarding those things as it may not always apply to a common man caught in an unusual circumstance, safe to say the miracle of illusion works wonders. Same shit in religion and what the babas preach, except that I have my own illusion to survive without hope. What is it that I lost? When did the humanity of earth stop being dynamic? Judging people is one of the problems. If you continue to put the new people you meet into buckets of stereotype, indiscriminately, then there will only be a finite number of buckets and all of the world will be accommodated in them. It cant be this matrix type situation can it? I cant be Neo. Well that dude ended up dead and the buckets lived happily ever after. And the only people I dont put into buckets are the ones I meet when I am full of hope.

Quit whining or write about it #youprefer

2010-07-19T14:46:00.007+05:30

Things always take the wildest turn you can never predict. At first it is new and exciting. I couldn't wait to discover interesting articles to read and fun things to have a laugh about. Then the focus shifted to people and how a lot of them could be creative and funny when it comes to dissecting day to day activities. Then it becomes about connecting and real-world worthy contacts. Then the unthinkable happens. You have misjudged and underestimated your own contribution to the scheme of things and the happenings around you. The followers arrive. Before you know you are under pressure. For once, you remember and mildly appreciate Ravi Shashtri's wise yet beaten words 'Its all about handling the pressure'. Everything has changed, the equations have altered, your own landscape has changed thanks to ever-changing preferences. It seems like chaos and a lot of noise. People come and go. A few drunken moments cost you dear. You finally have a landscape which you don't comprehend, you are not connected to, not reading or gaining a bit from, laughter is a thing of the past and a non-existent, fictitious, commitment to your followers. Your own short-comings are blindingly obvious to you and all along you have been learning lessons - more real world than virtual. Finally its all empty and there is no way out - your problem seems to be a combination of 283 numbers. Solution, from the beginning, never depended on the combination of 283 numbers but in finding your own unique, predictable, responsible and enjoyable balance right. You realize what you are not. You quit.

Things are better explained here: http://www.thehindu.com/arts/books/article521961.ece

Am I an Indian?

2010-06-18T15:38:00.007+05:30

I have always felt a stranger in my own country, maybe even held captive by forces beyond my control. But I have always known this is where I belong and never once gave a serious thought to leaving it. A misplaced moral compass has been a big aid to enabling this situation! Nationalism is over-rated. If all our people were educated and could live a life with self-respect and self-esteem would there be any real attachment to our country? People would find a lot of other interests to get attached to and would give no real time or attention to feeling proud of this country. The misplaced moral compass is what makes me feel for the masses who cant help themselves. The have-nots in this country have been handed a raw deal. This feeling of sadness and helplessness towards them is what makes me celebrate everytime India wins a cricket match or is shown in positive light in the global stage or when a Banking official provides loans to the poor in South Indian villages to help them start their own business. If you are educated and earn a comfortable living and can live with self-respect, nothing would turn you off more than the type of politicians we have - selfish and rotten to the core. Yet when I see people like P Chidambaram come on tv and answer his critics after a naxal attack, mildly honestly if I may say, I see some hope. Not that I am a supporter of him by any means. I wonder how such people rise to the top. Accountability is hard to establish in our system, a system run by officials who are too self-serving. No good should happen then but it does. A Koda has been side-lined, Pawar's business links are costing him dear, supreme court is pulling up Obulapuram Mining Company and an Arjun Singh is being questioned. This good makes me happy. Am I an Indian? Yes.

Please Say Yes

2010-06-16T18:07:00.005+05:30

If you say Yes, I would be happy. There are a lot of people who disagree with me. They dont approve of the fact that someone can love something that is not human. A country. A club. A technology? Too many social media experts around for my liking! Am I compensating for a lack of something by over-compensating for it elsewhere? The world is full of cynics and believers and I have to say they pretty much cancel each other out. The cynics are happy just criticizing everything that they come across and not really putting hope into anything. The believers appear the happy lot, ignorance as they say, is bliss. If you are surrounded by cynics and believers and have an open mind to absorb would you be more inclined to become a cynic or a believer? What exactly makes an individual? I believe this has more to do with your genes than what you are being fed by your immediate surrounding. An analytical mind is a subject of your genes, a god-given misery. It can make a choice but not of its existence. If you spend all your life reading books and talking to the cynics and believers around you, I believe there are not too many scenarios where you will end up a believer. A cynic is the only outcome. Because a believer is born and not made, a god-given misery too. You will be oblivious to your surroundings as you are blinded by your beliefs, the origins of which are forever lost in your muddled, largely unconnected and unorganized brain. I dont know how accountability is established in this world as I forever think the evil is winning. I want to believe. So please say Yes.

Surrounding Influence

2010-06-03T18:37:00.005+05:30

In order to perform at your best and deliver on expectations, you need an ambience...a place where you are liked and the music is per your wishes. I am not sure if people feel the need to perform all the time as it can become exhausting, but the ones with such a spirit and energy - even artificially created using stimulants - do feel the need. Maybe its a form of liberation. A freedom from not performing. Or a life goal, of global dominance. The later having few takers. If one takes this to an extreme, you would be performing all the time and the part of your character which doesnt do anything may be eventually overpowered. I find my ambience in a variety of situations, one of which is listening to music which has no beats. A form of sereneness and calm sets in, you say deep things in short sentences, devoid of any connotations. As you grow older almost everything can appear deep and complicated. Words cannot always capture the essence of one's feeling. Experience and change add their own connotation to your words leaving out the need for anything explicit. Performance varies as per the ambience and the time for which you have been performing. There may be an end to you performing. Maybe you loose the ambience or the audience. Jokes from 70s are not funny anymore though a deep few still go to operas. In time, people resort to set patterns which they know get the reception, it becomes a routine and is not a performance anymore. If you want to perform, pick the right ambience but dont plan, unless you are a mathematician.

The Rolemodel

2010-05-14T12:24:00.003+05:30

A break can do you good like no other. Sometimes, you need to take a step back and have a look at your life, and you will realize it is a mess! A good view, nevertheless. A wrecked angle never bothered me, never has - its the the window to something beautiful, a perfectly symmetrical calculated imperfection. Imperfection is an art or the art of being imperfect is a beauty, whatever works. We are often bogged down by societal pressures and give in to our loved ones' demands and in this process move closer to being the most perfect we can ever be. I read once that smart people have a responsibility to be successful. What rubbish. Smart people have a right to exist and do whatever it is that makes them happy, which I believe is what everyone of us is striving to do. It might surprise you when you wonder what all things you have become a role model for? You will be referred throughout your life, behind your back, as a role model for a variety of things - a good sportsman, religious gym enthusiast, passionate photographer, humorist, person of strong values, kindest heart and most commonly a successful person. When you take a step back and look at what you are, through clear looking glass, from a wrecked angle, and you see the mess, you know you are amongst the best role models out there. All that is left to be done is to tell your story, meet the world and you will be immortalized through your stories, the places you have been and things you have done. So take a break from your routine, it might be worth the view.

You did not say that!

2010-05-05T16:47:00.003+05:30

When in doubt, never wink. Thats the motto that works best in almost all situations. There is no denying that there is more to this world than we will ever know and we may never get to touch the limits of knowledge. Indian society places a lot of emphasis on knowing a lot of what you are about to do at all times. Ushar, the word in my mother tongue. Yes you can be ushar if you continue to do the same things living in the same place which you know everything about. Attitude matters when it comes to approaching unknown problems and situations. There are people in this country who are closer to you than you would like, they have business to do with you. If you believe everyone has an angle and every person has his character and place in this world, then you will end up having to know the entire population of a small village in your lifetime. India has a billion people and with development, each will be of their own type. Even science does not believe a person can end up knowing so many people. Blink and they will remove the carpet from under your feet. If this is the rut, knowing everything may well be a limitation while instinct is the only solution that fits. Better to say a mouthful of incoherent loopholed arguments without batting an eyelid than to find out what there is to know about the situation. I never get tired of all the negative energy around me. It may well make me magnetic, scientifically speaking.

Most men wont

2010-04-29T16:14:00.003+05:30

Whats free will and freedom to live and express yourself in this country worth? We are constrained, domesticated and made to kneel before the one's with power, long corrupted and devoid of any morals. If only everyone knew the implications, there would be a concerted effort to make a change in the system. Otherwise, we would continue to have guys like Shashank Manohar coming out and openly expressing his thuggery with a contempt and an unparalleled and unchallenged disdain for the system and its people. Is it ok if bad things happen to the ones we dont know? How long before it happens to us? This country runs on low probability of bad things happening to each one of us. We are just too many, a positive thought outnumbered and surrounded by negative ones. Best shared with loved ones. We bite the social communication pill for relief everyday, though short-lived it serves its purpose and makes it easier to ignore the negative energy. Battles are for warriors. I met a goon in the lift of my apartment today. He lives a couple of floors above me. He threw open and left the doors open when he left the lift.

Stop, take a moment to reflect

2010-04-26T17:38:00.003+05:30

When was the last time you stopped to reflect on your life? Most people go through life on auto-pilot. There are people around them all the time and life becomes this string of conversations and events that these people who surround you trigger in your life. To these lot, reflection does not hold much value. Reflections of your choices, events and conversations help you improve how you face the world. Life without improvements will be like doing the same mistakes again and again. Whenever I meet people who dont seem to have even a single moment of reflection, I just think what is the point of developing a relationship with them? It will just be dominated by a series of conversations and choices which are fundamentally ill-thought out, impatient and lacking any real wisdom and primarily dominated by them. This phenomemon of a lack of reflecting capability is closely linked to a lack of listening skills. People who dont have the capacity to reflect should listen to others and thereby learn something new and/or learn a new way of looking at things. The world is full of people who dont stop, who dont relfect. Not that there is anything wrong with it, like gay people, just a bit worse.

Turn for the worst

2010-04-02T17:37:00.003+05:30

This blog, after 984 posts related to IT, and some creative copy-pasting, will turn its attention to me, the person copy-pasting. The man behind the keyboard of plagiarism. No this is not to raise awareness on media issues in India and how TOI have in the past stolen many a pics from innocent geek photographers,equipped with blogs and twitter accounts, and used them on their paper without paying or giving due credit. No this is not a fight for your rights, or mine. This is a beginning of something beautiful. What, you may ask? I've got nothing. You have wasted your time and my time by asking that question. Indians never learn but thankfully have a short memory, thanks to state sponsored costly booze, particularly in hard-working, low-earning southern states like TN and Kerala. My heart goes out to those people, the ones with short memory. I remember watching Memento and thinking wow, what a genius, no not the guy who finds the killer using his notes despite bad memory, but the director of the movie - Nolan. Years later he made a masterpiece named Dark Knight, poetry on screen, too bad the movie was not recognized by critics, as I thought he had got movie making down to a manual. As for guys with short memory, god bless, its fantastic to go through life without remembering anything - the people you met and the conversations you had. Life without memory begins with accepting the present.

TCS To Review Salary Hikes By Month-End

2010-02-16T23:03:00.000+05:30

NEW DELHI: The country's largest software vendor Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Tuesday said it will review salary increment plans by this

month-end as signs of revival of demand in the sector get stronger by the day.

"There has been no hike in the current fiscal. The demand-supply situation, however, has improved over last year. We review it (wage hikes) along with the business plan for the year, which will be happening somewhere by end of February or in March," TCS Chief Financial Officer S Mahalingam told reporters on the sidelines of a CSI event here.

Indian IT sector was hit last year by the economic slowdown with companies world wide cutting their technology spends. This in turn, had led to many companies cutting jobs, freezing fresh hiring and no wage hikes.

Earlier this month, TCS announced that it would hire 30,000 people next fiscal, signalling that buoyancy was back.

Talking about expectations from the upcoming budget, Mahalingam said the industry, as a whole, wanted the extension of the tax holidays that are provided to IT firms under Sec 10A/10B of the Software Technology Parks (STP) Act.

He also asked the government to clear the ambiguities in various policies related to direct tax code and SEZs.

Is industry utilizing employees? Or exploiting?

2010-02-15T20:04:00.001+05:30

Akanksha Prasad, CIOL

BANGALORE, INDIA: The recent Nasscom and other reports signal that the wave of recession is slowly receding. Companies are reportedly posting positive employeeutilization, but this is done on the cost of the employee. IT companies increased working hours, work pressure putting more stress on the employees, and in return, they were not eligible for over time benefits.

As Business Directory.com defines, employee utilization means "a method that attempts to maximize the efficiency of a company's employees".

Kris Lakshmikanth, founder CEO and chairman of Headhunters India, said that till 2007, the average employee utilization of the IT companies was less than 70 per cent. But 2008 onwards, the utilization went up to 80-82 per cent.

He said, "The factors responsible for this movement is reduction in workforce, utilization of the bench and increase in the work timings."

During the recent quarterly announcement, Wipro reported an increase in the utilization to 73.2 per cent in Q3 FY 09. HCL reported its employee utilization level moving up to 76.4 per cent in Q3 and that of Infosys came around 68.8 per cent in Q3. TCS reported the highest utilization rate of 81.1 per cent (excluding trainees) and 77.2 cent (including trainees).

Speaking to CIOL, requesting anonymity, a Kolkata-based IT professional, working in one of the leading IT companies in India, said, "Starting April 2009, our work timingswere increased by half an hour officially but one hour internally. If we worked for less than nine hours then we were penalized. But when we worked for 12-15 hours, we were not given overtime."

Lakshmikanth elaborated, "As per the reports the companies had increased the working timings by half an hour every day, which would come around an increase of two and a half hours in a week. This increase in the entire workforce can effect the total employee utilization to as much as five per cent."

Some of the IT companies reported to have increased their work timings from fifteen minutes to half an hour are TCS, HCL and Accenture.

When contacted these IT companies refused to respond, while others like Wipro and Infosys refrained from making comments saying that these timings had been around since long time.

According to them, these norms have been around for years, and it was just during the period September to December 2008 that they made compulsory office working of 9 hours 15 minutes and 9 hours 30 minutes respectively. In other words, every employee needs to work for around 8 plus one and half hour and on record, though they end up spending more than that.

Elaborating on the concept of increasing work timings, Praveen Bhadada, engagement manager, Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd said, "For IT companies working on time and material basis, working extra hours means more revenues at the fixed salary of the employee, i.e. increased profitability. For fixed bid contracts, the work is executed faster – i.e. higher efficiency. Increased work hours reflect in increased overall productivity.

Another IT professional working in Bangalore reported that in order to show good performance and high efficiency, employees end up working for 12 hours, but still were not eligible to claim for the overtime.

She said, "Our targets were increased by double, in order to meet them under the deadlines, we worked for almost 12-14 hours. We were not only devoid of the overtime claim, but also the performance sheet did not reflect our hard work. This is the high time, when government should make strict labor laws and work timings."

Through an email, the spokesperson from the Union Labor Ministry said IT employees shall have a minimum of 48 working hours in a week but the maximum working hours have not been defined in the law and left to the discretion of the employer company. He said the department is examining the issue of working hours beyond 8 hours a day- without any extra monetary benefits.

Interestingly, none of these companies seem to bring back the gold old working experience of relief and luxury at work. Lakshmikanth opines that companies might continue with these policies for yet another six months, till they comfortably see not only recovery but growth.

Bhadada raised a very valid point that if the employee is stressed it can result in lower productivity and lower utilization as well. And this would soon become a challenge for the companies, perhaps one the reasons behind employee attrition.

TCS to hire 30,000 employees in FY-2011

2010-02-10T16:18:00.002+05:30

10 Feb, 2010, 1300 hrs IST, AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: With improving business sentiment and revival in IT spends, hiring seems to be back in full swing at software firm TCS. Tata Consultancy Services, the country's largest software exporter by revenue plans to hire 30,000 employees in the financial year 2010-2011.

TCS CEO and MD N Chandrasekaran said, "China is a tough market for IT firms and the company was seeing business opportunity in Europe." The company is currently seeing an 8-10% growth in revenue from domestic operations and is eyeing a double-digit growth in the next two years.

Chandrasekaran said the company had signed a few large deals as well as a number of smaller ones.
"The financial services sector will drive growth. We expect good growth from retail, pharma and utilities," he said.

The company, however, expects a lesser growth from verticals such as telecom and manufacturing.

Chandrasekaran said the company will hike salaries of its employees in the coming fiscal, but did not give details. TCS, has not hiked wages in the current fiscal, but employees have received 150 per cent VA payouts in two consecutive quarters -- Q2 and Q3 of FY'10.

"We are on a path to hire 1,000 people. We have already hired 300," he said, replying to a query on hiring plans for the current fiscal. In Q3 of FY-10, TCS had made 7,692 net additions, compared with a net addition of 320 in the previous quarter.

Asked about the extent to which India would be affected by the US move to slash tax-breaks to outsourcers, Chandrasekaran said the matter is not an immediate concern.

US president Barack Obama last month had said his administration would "slash the tax-breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas" and instead "give those tax-breaks to companies that create jobs in the country," which sent shivers down the industry's spine.

This is because the US accounts for almost 60 per cent of the IT exports from the country are to that market.

"The regulatory changes with regard to employment and outsourcing in any part of the world is something that we have to watch every day. You need to see how to align to that, but because of this, if you ask me if there is an immediate concern, then the answer is no," Chandrasekaran said.

Satyam Probe Almost Complete, Says Khursheed

2010-02-07T20:13:00.000+05:30

Chennai, Feb. 7 (ANI): Union Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed has said that the probe into the fiasco of Satyam Computer Services Limited is almost complete and the trial would take place in a fast track court.

Interacting with the media on the sidelines of a conference here Khursheed said: “The courts have been designated and I hope that it will move in the fast track as far as courts are concerned. We have given an outstanding team of lawyers headed by the Solicitor General himself.”

“Investigations are now complete, unless the court requires something more. And now it was for the court that what they want to do… I do hope that we will be able to show progress during this year,” he added.

Investigating agencies had filed fresh charges against Satyam Computer Services Limited founder and five others over an accounting fraud that hit the software services company early last year.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had also filed a third charge sheet against the six accused in a court in Hyderabad, where Satyam is headquartered, for filing false tax returns that resulted in loss to Satyam shareholders.

The CBI filed its first charge sheet against Raju and others in April last year, followed by another in November for falsification of accounts, cheating and criminal breach of trust, among other charges. (ANI)

IT sector boom results increase in demand for real estate sector

2010-02-04T21:12:00.001+05:30

Most IT hubs like Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurgaon, Bangalore and Mumbai are witnessing higher demand for office space from IT companies.The revival of growth in the information technology (IT) industry is rubbing off on the real estate sector, too.For Santosh Kumar, CEO (operations) at leading property consultant Jones Lang LeSalle Meghraj, it is the revival of the US economy that has encouraged IT companies to start looking at India again for expansion.

Real estate players also report an increase in demand from the IT sector.Increase in the number of enquiries from the IT sector this quarter (ending March) is primarily due to the expansion in terms of hiring more manpower.Network Appliance Incorporated recently acquired a piece of land in Bangalore to expand India operations. Noida-based QA InfoTech is planning to move to a campus that will be almost double the 50,000 sq ft it currently occupies in three separate facilities.

With all large infotech companies back in hiring mode, there has been a spurt of activity in the commercial real estate segment.A demand for office space in the range of 25,000-30,000 sq ft from the IT sector is seen and this is definitely going to increase in the next couple of months.

Happy Times are Here Again – Indian Companies Set to Announce Pay Hikes

2010-02-02T15:03:00.001+05:30

by sweta

After more than a year of money crunch, job loss and pay cuts; employees all over India have something to cheer about. As the corporates start recovering after the dreadful economy slowdown, the companies are gearing to reward their employees with bonus and pay hikes.

According to the latest report by Economic Times, employees across corporate India can expect a salary hike anywhere between 9 to 18 percent this year.

As per current trends, employees across sectors may get moderate to fat increments and salary hikes in the 9-18 percent range this year around. Pay-cuts, layoffs and heightened austerity measures are becoming a thing of the past, as it gets replaced with a buzz of promising bonuses.

The salary hike is expected in most companies belonging to telecom, retail, FMCG, automobiles and consumer durables sector. Last year a majority of companies had to bring down their head count. While many had resorted to a pay cut across the organisation, some had fired people in bulk.

Sandeep Chaudhary from Hewitt Associates was quoted as

“If we take a realistic look on expected salary hikes this year, it is surely going to be around 9-9.5 percent across sectors.”

He added, “Companies will focus on a more realistic approach towards salaries, as well as hiring.”

Where auto and mobile sector have been profitable and quite generous with their employees. While Maruti Suzuki is looking at a hike of 10-15 percent and an average bonus of about 100 percent this year, mobile giant Airtel is had offred an average bonus of 140-150 for junior level employees and 125 percent for senior level last year.

IT companies who have always been the highest paying sector have also decided on a good hike for its employees this year. Cognizant,SAP, VMware, Mahindra Satyam, TCS, Wipro, Infosys and Genpact are said to offer an increment of 7-15 percent at the operational level and 12-18 percent to the seniors. Wipro was among the first one to announce a hike of about 8-12 percent. At Stayam, employees can expect a hike anywhere between 8 to 20 percent and Infosys is looking at a salary hike in april even after a hike of 8% last year in October.

The job market which has been very slow for some time now has also started showing good signs lately. How do I know?

Haven’t you noticed the Naukri.com ad back on Television?

Satyam scam has hurt PwC brand: Global Chairman

2010-02-02T12:33:00.000+05:30

Audit-firm PriceWaterhouseCooper has had a tough year in India, starting with the hit the brand took when the Satyam scam came to light. But the company is continues to bet on India as a growth market.

CNBC-TV18's Menaka Doshi caught up with PwC Global Chairman Dennis Nally who spoke about the audit-firm’s India plans and the road ahead.

Below is a verbatim transcript of the interview. Also watch the video.

Q: Its been a spectacularly difficult year in India, starting in January with Satyam and last few months there have been people issue in the firm. What is your outlook on India and what you are doing to be able to regain, a perception point of view, the number one spot?

A: Without question the firm has had real challenges in India but that has not changed my outlook and view on the importance of India economy to global economic picture. It’s clearly one of our most strategic markets. I think it offers tremendous opportunity for growth and we are very much committed to this market place for the future. We are investing heavily. We will add significant number of jobs in India this year versus a year ago – not only to service our clients from insurance, tax and advisory standpoint but also adding jobs in our global service delivery centre that exists in India today.

We are very optimistic about what the prospects are for India. I visit India many times and it is very important to me and to PriceWaterhouseCoopers to capitalize on what those opportunities are. It is a very important market for us.

Q: What will it take to put the brand back on track?

A: It is going to take sustained performance and nothing short of that. Everything we do is a matter of focus. It’s a matter of excellence, quality – everything that we are doing. We just need to continue to deliver, service our clients, respond to their needs, help them deal with their issues and challenges. If we do that and we do that consistently over a period of time the PwC brand in India will be as strong and as good as it has been in the past and where we want it to be into the future.

Q: But do you think at all that one-off instance like this can hurt the brand in any fashion?

A: Any one-off instance can do harm to your brand and that is the reality. Our job is to make sure we are doing everything and we have done a number of things in India to ensure that this would not happen again, we are very much focused on it and time will tell as to how successful we are really to make that happen.

Expressway puts hope on fast lane in Bangalore

2010-01-23T11:23:00.002+05:30

Devina Sengupta & Shwetha S / DNA

Bangalore: Hours before the longest elevated expressway to the Electronic City was thrown open to commuters on Friday, TV Mohandas Pai, human resource head of Infosys Technologies, was talking about how the unclogging of the traffic on the Hosur Road would improve the employability for companies housed in the city’s tech hub.
He said his company had lost 15,000-16,000 workers over the last 15 years because of bad connectivity. “We lost them (employees) because they did not want to commute to the Electronic City (because of bad infrastructure).”

The country’s second largest information technology (IT) company has a sprawling campus spread over 50,000 acres in the Electronic City, with over 50,000 people working out of it.

The HR head of country’s the second largest IT firm said the new flyover would cut the time taken to travel from the city to the tech hub by 30 minutes, which would translate into higher productivity and revenue for companies located there.

“It will save at least half an hour of travel time and that means for 100,000 employees of Infosys — 50,000 hours will (collectively) get saved. Electronic City will become the best place to work in India (with the opening up of the flyover). It will also reduce the stress levels and improve performance of the employees,” said Pai.

And it’s not just him, who can’t stop raving about the benefits that would accrue to companies because of the world class infrastructure.

Babu Rangaswamy, director, best shore application services — India Centre, Hewlett-Packard Pvt Ltd, felt that the expressway would improve the work-life balance of employees working from their office in the tech city. “Employees can now leverage their time at work and manage a healthy work-life balance. The elevated road will not only help reduce carbon emissions, but also set the tone of improved infrastructure in the city,” he said.

Wipro’s Joseph John said: “The number of Wipro busses ferrying the employees will get reduced, leading to less carbon emissions. Time gets saved and employee productivity will increase.”

Srikanth Paturi, a regular commuter to the Electronic City, said his travel would now be easier and quicker. “Though I won’t be using the expressway regularly, I can still use it when it’s required or during emergencies,” he told DNA.

He was, however, sceptical on whether the new expressway would completely end the traffic nightmare that the Hosur Road has become.

“The traffic jam problem near the Silk Board junction will persist as all the vehicles will arrive there and get clogged. Though we will be able to reach the Silk Board from Electronic City easily, we may get stuck in a jam after that,” said Paturi.

Techie Anish Ratnam, a resident of Frazer Town, however, said that the expressway would cut the travel time by more than half.
Anand Rao, a software professional with a tech firm in the Electronic City, believed the high toll fee could be dampener. “I feel the toll fixed is quite high. Most of us work only for five days in a week. It’s not worth paying Rs900 per month. We would rather take the alternative routes (than pay the toll)."

Wipro says Finland ops rejig to impact 85 staff

2010-01-21T19:19:00.001+05:30

BANGALORE, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Wipro Ltd (WIPR.BO), India's No. 3 software exporter, said on Thursday it was planning to restructure some part of its Finland operations and the move could impact a maximum of 85 people.

The company's IT unit, which employs 300 people in Finland, will start a consultation process with the staff representatives as part of the restructuring of its telecom research and development operations there.

"After carefully considering all possible options, the company has decided to enter into a negotiation process with the employees given the challenging industry situation in telecom R&D," it said in a statement. (Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)

Wipro To Give Salary Hike

2010-01-21T12:39:00.001+05:30

NEW DELHI: India's third largest software exporter Wipro said it would hike salaries across the board this quarter, but did not indicate quantum.

According to Pratik Kumar, corporate vice president, human resources, the salary hike will be given out in February. He added, “The hike will be according to the industry standards.”

Wipro beat estimates with a 19 percent rise in December quarter profit and projected growth as a global economic recovery boosts demand for outsourcing services and eases pressure on fees.

New York-listed Wipro expects its IT services revenue to rise 3.6-5.4 percent in January-March from the preceding quarter to $1.16-$1.18 billion, after it posted a 4.9 percent sequential rise in the latest quarter.

The company also announced that it will hire people from campuses. Some 7,500 people hired previously are expected to join in Q4 and early next quarter.

Last week Tata Consultancy Services also announced that it expects to increase wages in the 2011 financial year.

TCS global head of HR Ajoy Mukherjee said the company has decided to give salary increments during financial year ending March 2011, although the exact quantum of hike is yet to be decided.

“There definitely will be a wage hike but the quantum is not finalised. We are considering three options,” Mukherjee said. While giving the hikes, the company will maintain the salary structure it moved to in FY10, which consists of a quarterly variable component and an annual variable component.

However, the company so far has no plans to increase the salaries of junior recruits.

Cognizant staff to get promotions, higher bonus

2010-01-20T17:08:00.001+05:30

Measures based on company performance, client plans, talent needs.

K. Bharat Kumar

Chennai, Jan. 18

Employees of Cognizant Technology Solutions have a lot to cheer for now.

An e-mail from the company's Chief Financial Officer, Mr Gordon Coburn, and the Chief People Officer, Mr Shankar Srinivasan, has assured them, this year, of ‘significantly higher levels of bonus,' ‘accelerated promotion and pay-revision cycles' and, the taking care of ‘2006 and prior campus batches' currently with the company.

The e-mail, a copy of which is with Business Line, says it has arrived at these measures “based on a careful assessment of the performance of Cognizant, input from our clients in terms of their plans and our review of the talent market in various geographies around the globe.” Typically for large industry players, if confidence stems from “clients' plans”, then a better year ahead is expected. Given Infosys' and TCS' upbeat performance for the December 2009 quarter, with the former saying that the ‘worst is behind us', Cognizant too could be seeing greener pastures ahead.

The e-mail touches upon the company's ‘associate reward and recognition plans for 2010' across four fronts.

Bonus

The bonus payouts for the year 2009 are planned for distribution in March this year at levels ‘significantly above recent years'.

While details are not available as to how much was paid out last year, industry watchers say that across the industry, bonus payouts could, in good times, exceed 100 per cent. (For instance, if your salary is Rs 100 and the variable component of your salary is Rs 30, then your variable pay could be anywhere between Rs 0 in a bad year to Rs 30 in a good year. In boom time, variable pay has exceeded 150 per cent in some companies in the industry.)

Promotion

This year, Cognizant aims to give promotions effective across May and July.

Typically this used to be effective July. For employees currently at designation below Manager, Cognizant would announce promotions in late April, effective May 1. It would also conduct an additional promotion round for this group in late 2010. For Managers and above, it would announce promotions in June, effective July 1. Interestingly, the e-mail says, “We expect to promote a substantially larger number of people than last year.”

Compensation

The company has also committed to an accelerated company-wide pay revision cycle that would become effective at the same time as promotion cycles in May and July.

For now, no further details are available and the e-mail only says, “We will conduct market analyses to determine the scale of the revisions, taking into account overall market conditions, our revenue plans, and our clients' spending patterns.”

The company also has a word for those who joined it in 2006 and prior batches, currently at Programmer (P) and Programmer Analyst (PA) levels.

For programmers

It recognises that, “given the global economic turmoil and our slower growth over the past few years… many in this group were disproportionally impacted.”

Hence Cognizant is planning a separate, off-cycle salary increment process for the India-based portion of this population with an effective date of January 1, 2010. This initiative will occur in February once the 2009 performance ratings are finalised, it says. “In addition, a substantial number of P and PA promotions will be announced in April and will be made effective May 1 {+t},” the e-mail says.

TCS, Wipro, Infosys, loosen purse strings to retain staff

2010-01-18T14:10:00.004+05:30

BANGALORE: Nitin M, a techie in his 30s in IT capital Bangalore, still feels a chill run down his spine as he recalls the roller coaster ride his professional life took during the economic slowdown last year. In the pre-slowdown days, he belonged to the country’s most pampered workforce, when jobs were easy to come by and perks were splashed. The storm came soon enough. The smiles thinned out, and the number of colleagues he shared his expansive office space with too began to diminish. Sodexo coupons were cut, easy rides in private taxi cabs were replaced with journeys in crowded company buses. And salary hikes were a thing of the past. As a new decade unfolds, the wheel has come full circle. Nitin, who has recently landed a job with another IT company, said his previous employers had slashed increments during the recession. “Now, the company is giving a 40% hike to hire former employees back.”

Salary hikes in the offing IT employees and HR experts expect many companies such as Target, Cognizant, SAP, VMware, Mahindra Satyam, TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Genpact, Oracle, MindTree and Accenture to offer a pay hike of 7-15% at the operational level and 12-18% at senior levels. Abhinav Krishnan, an employee at VMware, the largest maker of software that lets computers run different operating systems, recently received a salary hike. This came as a big relief to him as he is his family’s sole breadwinner. “The company I worked with previously did not give me any hike. So I moved out, and my salary has now doubled,” says this 26-year-old employee, who was earlier with one of the world’s largest technology companies. Similarly smiles are back on the face of the 27-year-old techie working at advisory services firm Ernst & Young. He had planned to buy a car and a bigger house last year, but these dreams wilted away in the economic slowdown. “This year, I am planning to buy both. The company has announced a salary hike and a bonus of 7-10%. I am now in a better position to get a loan,” he said.

Attrition levels up
The improving market sentiments have also resulted in a rise in attrition levels, as companies have started to pay premium packages to hire skilled hands from other companies. An Infosys employee said attrition levels have gone up and most employees were going to rival firms like Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro, which are offering a 40% hike in salaries. “We are expecting a salary hike of 8% this April,” he said. He said that during the tough times, they had to put in six hours of work, which was considered a full day. “Now, spending 3.5 hours is considered to be a full day,” he said. Due to the economic meltdown, issues related to the work environment, employee benefits and innovative programmes were put on the backburner. Companies were not too transparent in informing their employees about key decisions taken in the organisation. Many employees said that some companies are exploiting the situation in the name of recession. Ajit Sivaraman, a 26-year-old techie, shifted to Tesco — one of Britain’s largest retail groups — to do the IT-related work there. The company offered him a 60-70% pay hike. He is now planning to buy his own home with an investment of around Rs 20-25 lakh. “I used to earn between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 3 lakh. Now I get Rs 3-5 lakh in the new job,” he said. He said his previous organisation even changed the cab facility to bus service for morning shift employees and offered staffers Rs 75 per day, if anyone wanted to come on their own. “It costs me Rs 200 per day to commute. They even cut our Sodexo meal card,” he said.

Talent reward programme
A Satyam professional said salary hikes were based on a model called ‘Smart’, with employees coming under the so-called ‘S-band’ receiving a salary hike of 20%, while those under the T-band received an 8% salary hike. He was expecting hike of 15% in April and plans to buy some property. “kI was earlier looking to move out as there was a lot of uncertainty and attrition levels were high. I don’t have plans to move out now,” he said. C Mahalingam, executive vice-president and chief people officer at offshore product firm Symphony Services, said his company was giving a salary hike of 7-8% to their employees and 8-9% hike to its top talent. “Companies are now hosting lunches and dinners at five-star hotels for their top talent. But the fun-and-frolic approach to keep employees happy may not come back in the near future,” he said. Mid-sized software and R&D services firm MindTree said it is focusing on a good communication network and is keeping employees informed about every development. “Employees do not expect free lunches and gifts. But they want to be treated as professionals, and their seniors to be more approachable,” says MindTree chief HR Puneet Jetli. IT services firm MphasiS has announced a recompense bonus for its staff which the company feels is possibly an innovative compensation model as it is based on the company’s performance and employee’s individual performance. “We have given a recompense bonus of 25% for the highest performer. For good performers, the bonus can be 15-25% higher than the average pay hike,” MphasiS chief human resources officer Elango R said.

According to Ajit Isaac, MD & CEO of IKYA Human Capital Solutions, many companies are planning a 12-18% fixed salary hike for senior employees and 5-15% salary hike for employees at the operations level. But captive centres, which were earlier paying lucrative salaries, won’t be able to keep the pace. “This is because outsourcing margins and billing rates are under pressure as a major chunk of outsourcing contracts are going to third party vendors,” he said. An IT employee at Keane, a technology services company, said she has received a salary hike of 10-12%. “Last year, there were lot of structural changes to combat the recession,” she said. The New Year has certainly brought some smiles back.

Tata Consultancy net profit up 34% on rising IT spends

2010-01-16T14:11:00.001+05:30

`We have seen growth in all verticals,' says CEO N. Chandrasekaran.

Mr N. Chandrasekaran, CEO and Managing Director, Tata Consultancy Services, flanked by Mr Ajoyendra Mukherjee, Head, Global HR (left), and Mr S. Mahalingam, CFO, announcing the company's results in Mumbai on Friday. - Shashi Ashiwal

Our Bureau

Mumbai, Jan. 15

Riding on the back of a revival in IT spend across industries and geographies, the country's largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, beat market expectations to report a 34 per cent rise in net profit for the third quarter ended December 31, 2009.

The Mumbai-based company - which counts bellwether firms' such as Citibank, Chrysler and GE as clients - recorded a net profit of Rs 1,824 crore against Rs 1,362 crore reported in the year-ago period.

Revenues went up by 5.1 per cent to Rs 7,648 crore (Rs 7,277 crore).

"We have seen growth in all verticals, including the troubled ones such as hi-tech and telecom. Geography-wise, we see a broader recovery not only in the US, but also in Europe, Asia-Pacific and India," Mr N. Chandrasekaran, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, told newspersons here on Friday.

He said the demand sentiments are improving every quarter. "We are seeing deal closures happening at the same pace that we used to before the financial crisis. Even discretionary spending (IT spends on new projects) is coming back as seen by the improvement in our consulting business," said Mr Chandrasekaran. (As a percentage of overall revenues, consulting now contributes 2.1 per cent to overall revenues as against 1.6 per cent in the previous quarter.)

Through improved operational performance and cost-cutting measures, TCS was able to expand its operating profit margin for the quarter by 176 basis points. Volumes grew 6.6 per cent, the highest in the last eight quarters. In the quarter, TCS added 32 new customers for its IT and back-office outsourcing services.

TCS' domestic business, which accounts for 8.5 per cent of its revenues, grew sequentially 8 per cent. The growth has come from sectors such as government, financial services and others.

"Volatility in domestic revenues continues to be a challenge for the company. Though we are not yet at a point where we can claim to have got the business mix right, we are still seeing growth," Mr Chandrasekaran said, adding that the domestic unit's profitability has also gone up sequentially.

n deals totalling over Rs 450 crore, TCS has been selected by two States as partner for the Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme, said a press statement.

The energy and utilities domain, as a percentage of overall company revenues, now account for 3.4 per cent as against 2.8 per cent in the second quarter.

On the forex front, the company was able to pare hedging losses to Rs 35 crore as against Rs 113 crore reported in the previous sequential quarter. For the fourth quarter, TCS has $400 million of hedges at an average rate of Rs 45.7 to the dollar, according to Mr S. Mahalingam, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director.

In US dollar terms, cross currency movements had a positive impact of 90 basis points on the company's operating margins, Mr Mahalingam told analysts in a conference call. On being asked about which way he expects the rupee to move, Mr Mahalingam told reporters: "We are preparing for further appreciation in the rupee and are positioning ourselves accordingly."

Given the increased buoyancy in the business environment, will TCS add to its business development and sales teams?

"We have been working towards bringing down our sales and general administration costs.our endeavour is to generate more revenues from the current sales teams," Mr Mahalingam said.

TCS has announced a quarterly dividend of Rs 2 a share. Ahead of the results announcement, TCS stock hit its 52-week high of Rs 799.2, before settling at Rs 791.80 (9.6 per cent higher than the previous day's close) on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Satyam Computer basks in IT glory

2010-01-15T12:33:00.000+05:30

Shares of Satyam Computer are seeing a renewed burst of activity. Probably, strong quarterly numbers from Infosys Technologies could have raised expectations from other leading IT services companies as well. On Thursday, a US-based investor is said to have bought close to 30 lakh shares. Some of the bull operators too are said to be steadily building up long positions at the counter. Dealers tracking the counter say the rise in the stock price from hereon may be a bit gradual, since many players who are tired of holding on to the stock may decide to cash in. The stock had touched a high of Rs 128 in September last year, but has been moving in a narrow band ever since. On Thursday, the stock closed at Rs 120.85, up 1.2% from the previous close. On the BSE, 1.23 crore shares changed hands, with roughly a fourth of it resulting in delivery.

Infosys sacks techies for 'unethical behaviour'

2010-01-13T07:49:00.000+05:30

MYSORE: Infosys Technologies has sacked a software engineer, Abhishek Gupta, for making a hoax call to budget carrier GoAir at Delhi airport Oct

25 to avoid missing his Bangalore-bound flight, a company official said here on Tuesday.

"Yes, we have sacked Gupta for indulging in unethical behaviour. We have a very strict code of conduct. We take strict action against those who do not adhere to it," Infosys board member and head of HRD and education and research T.V. Mohandas Pai told media.

The 25-year-old Gupta caused a bomb scare by telling GoAir staff that there was some suspicious object on the plane after he failed to convince them earlier to delay the flight.

"He thought the hoax call will delay the flight and he could reach the airport in the meantime to catch the flight," a Delhi police official said after Gupta was taken into custody and jailed.

The IT bellwether has also suspended another software engineer, Pallav Chakraborty, after he was arrested with his wife Sinchita by the Bangalore police Dec 29 for allegedly torturing their 15-year-old domestic maid.

"Though Chakraborty joined the company 15 days before his arrest, we suspended him after an inquiry into the child abuse, which is a very sad thing to have happened," Pai said.

As the police were investigating the case and the accused was in the judicial custody, Pai said the company would take strict action against him after the law had taken its course.

"We do not condone such acts. We are saddened by such an inhuman act. We have 109,882 employees on rolls. I think as we grow bigger, we are not the sample but part of the universe," Pai said on the margins of a media briefing on the company's financial performance for the third quarter.

Pallav and Sinchita, who hail from Kolkata, brought the girl from West Bengal for household chores.

A social organisation rescued the girl after raiding the house following a tip that a young domestic maid was in a bad state with injuries on her back and cut marks on her lips.

The police did not name the victim to protect her privacy and not to hamper investigation.

The company was also forced to suspend another engineer, Krishnamurthy, working at its Mysore development centre, after the police arrested him Dec 3 on the charge of molesting a French woman.

"Krishnamurthy remains suspended as police inquiry is still on. We will not spare anyone if (his or her) behaviour is not in line with our code of conduct," Pai said.

The three incidents occurred at a time when the company was recovering from the impact of a year-long global tech meltdown.

Protecting margins a big worry for IT firms

2010-01-08T14:19:00.003+05:30

BANGALORE: India's leading software services companies are set to report a fall in profit margins for the last quarter due to a firmer local, though demand for outsourcing is improving in a global economy on the mend. The country's $60 billion sector, which manages complex computer networks to maintaining technology operations for clients such as General Electric and Citigroup, is back to its hiring ways and is also boosting salaries. "All the negatives in the world economy are not out of the system, but the confidence level in the IT sector is better now compared to the beginning of last year," said Rakesh Rawal, head of private wealth management at Anand Rathi Financial Services. "The companies are now expected to come back on the growth path, but the key challenge is the currency rate."

A global recovery, recent deal wins and stable prices have brightened the outlook for Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys Technologies, India's top two IT exporters, after the global recession hit the sector last year. The rupee, which rallied to a 15-month high on Thursday, surging wages, and intense competition from global firms such as IBM, Accenture and Hewlett-Packard are seen as key risks for the sector. The rupee is set to rise another 4 percent this year on top of its 4.7 percent increase last year, with gains driven mainly by inbound portfolio investment, according to a Reuters poll. Indian tech firms are a magnet for thousands of young jobseekers with their sprawling campuses offering pizza and Subway outlets, golf courses and fitness centres to retain employees.

The software services sector gets more than half its revenue from the United States but companies are furiously expanding in Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East to reduce dependency in the market and boost growth. Infosys, India's No. 2 software exporter, a trendsetter in the showpiece industry, kicks off the earnings parade on Tuesday, followed by sector leader Tata Consultancy on Friday and third-ranked Wipro on Jan 20. Infosys is expected to post its first year-on-year drop in October-December profit, as wage rises, a stronger rupee and higher sales and marketing costs dent margins. Valued at $32 billion, Infosys, which had previously frozen salary hikes and promotions for this fiscal year, said in October it would raise pay by an average of 8 percent this year for its employees in India. Markets will be keen on the company's comments on business and pricing trends, hiring and IT budgets of its overseas clients in 2010. Last month, Accenture reported a fall in first quarter earnings and gave a sales outlook for the current quarter that was weaker than analysts' expectations.

MARGIN PRESSURES
Infosys expects revenue growth in the fiscal year starting in April to be better than this year as a recovery in the global economy spurs investments by its clients, a senior official told Reuters last month. Consultant Gartner said major British and U.S. firms are focusing on a return to revenue growth in 2010 over cost-cutting, and information technology was central to their recovery strategies. Brokerage Angel Securities said Infosys profit margins are set to drop 245 basis points in Oct-Dec from the preceding quarter due to a 3.4 percent rise in the rupee and salary hikes. Tata Consultancy and Wipro should report margins fell 62 basis points and 38 basis points, respectively, it said. In the quarter, Tata Consultancy shares gained 21 percent and Infosys rose 13 percent versus a 14 percent jump in the sector index and a 2 percent rise in the broader market.

Telangana issue forces IT firms to eye neighbours

2010-01-06T11:08:00.003+05:30

Political disturbance over the demand for a separate Telangana state is forcing information technology companies to shift. The process to shortlist office space in neighbouring states, like Tamil Nadu, is underway.

"Six companies, including top five in IT and operating in Hyderabad, want to shift before the end of January," Chennai-based Shriram Properties Managing Director M Murali said.

Software exports from Andhra Pradesh are projected to touch Rs 35,000 crore in 2009-10, and IT companies like Tata Consultancy Services , Infosys , Wipro , Tech Mahindra and HCL are present in Hyderabad.

"Besides Chennai, we have received enquires for leased properties in Visakhapatnam. All want office space for at least three-five years," Murali added.

"Two IT majors have approached us for 100 apartments on bulk lease, besides IT premises," said Chitty Babu, chairman of Akshaya Homes, a Chennai-based developer.

The IT department of Tamil Nadu confirmed that Chennai had received enquiries from Hyderabad-based IT companies. The Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot), the nodal agency for IT in the state, develops special economic zones.

"We have been approached by IT companies, which are currently enquiring about availability of space in the state," an IT department official said. He added that Elcot was planning to organise roadshows -- from Hyderabad to begin with -- to promote IT in Tamil Nadu.

The move is bound to have its impact.

"About 15-20 percent of the 60,000-140,000 professionals employed globally by Tech Mahindra, Patni Computers, Satyam Computer, HCL, Wipro, Infosys and TCS globally are based in Hyderabad," P Phani Sekhar, fund manager (research arm), Angel Broking said.

J A Chowdary, managing director of NVidia Graphics India and president of The Indus Entrepreneurs, Hyderabad chapter, said if the decision on Telangana was prolonged, the IT companies would suffer. "Though we have requested the political parties to ensure law and order, students are going in for violent agitations by not allowing buses to ply and creating problems for people to reach offices."

Operation Satyam, a job half done

2010-01-06T08:07:00.001+05:30

The government's failure in quickly bringing to trial Mr Ramalinga Raju and others involved in the Satyam scandal is as spectacular as its success in saving Satyam, the company, says RAGHUVIR SRINIVASAN.

The singular aim was preserving Satyam, the company, and finding a new owner of repute for it.

On January 7, 2008, Mr Ramalinga Raju dropped a bombshell — confessing to a Rs 7,136-crore fraud — on an unsuspecting market, shareholders, employees and, indeed, even the government. Mr Raju's letter bomb, emailed in inconspicuous fashion to the Bombay Stock Exchange, caused massive value destruction for Satyam Computer's shareholders, created huge uncertainty for its employees and clients and posed a major challenge to the government.

A year later, the dust has settled on the company which was rescued by a brave knight in shining armour in the form of Tech Mahindra. Save for the sword of class-action suits filed by shareholders in the US hanging over its head, Mahindra Satyam, as it is now known, has weathered the worst of the storms that it faced.

There were some high-profile employee exits as also some clients moving on to competitors, but these were largely well managed. In short, Satyam, the company has been saved and is now back on its feet. The credit for this should go to the government-appointed Board, peopled by eminent personalities such as Mr Deepak Parekh, Mr Kiran Karnik and professionals such as Mr T. N. Manoharan, chartered accountant and Mr C. Achuthan, a former SEBI member.

The singular aim was preserving Satyam, the company, and finding a new owner of repute for it.

Today, the members of the government-appointed Board can look back with satisfaction at a job well done. A large part of the credit should also go to the then government which gave the new Board a free hand and facilitated the eventual sale of Satyam to Tech Mahindra by relaxing some regulations.

The imperatives

Yet, Operation Satyam remains a job half done. There were two clear imperatives when the scandal became public. The first was to ensure that Satyam, the company, did not collapse while the second was to get after the perpetrators and facilitators of the scandal and put them on trial. The government's failure in the second objective is as spectacular as its success in the first.

Yes, Mr Raju and a few other characters from the supporting cast are behind bars now, but do we know exactly what happened in the whole scandal other than what Mr Raju confessed to? Do we know how he managed to pull the wool over the eyes of regulators, employees and even the auditors?

Still in the dark

Talking of auditors, do we know what their roles in the scandal were — was it just benign negligence or was it tacit acquiescence? Are we aware of who were the beneficiaries of Mr Raju's swindle, apart from the man himself? In the days following the revelation of the scandal, there were dark rumours of the tentacles of the scam reaching political circles. Do we know if such rumours are true?

The answer to all these questions is a resounding No. A year after Mr Raju's confession, we are still in the dark about the extent of the scam.

But is this how it should be? Should the government not make earnest efforts to get to the bottom of the most serious corporate fraud ever perpetrated in the country's history?

Swift retribution

Corporate scandals and swindles are an integral part of free markets. The very freedom that allows enterprise to flourish and grow is often subject to misuse and abuse by unscrupulous minds. You only have to look at the list of recent scandals in that bastion of free markets, the US. Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling of Enron fame and, most recently, Bernie Madoff's $65 billion Ponzi scheme fraud and Sir Allen Stanford, are all excellent examples of scams facilitated by benign regulation.

Yet, there is a critical difference between the US and us in this respect. Retribution in the US is swift and the long hand of the law comes down hard on those caught with their fingers in the till. For instance, the Madoff scam surfaced at about the same time as Satyam but Mr Madoff was tried and convicted to 150 years in prison within six months in June 2009. The US justice system is now working to monetise whatever assets that they were able to seize to return at least a part of the money to the victims.

Contrast that with the situation in India where investigations and trials can drag on for so many years that the perpetrators are eventually administered divine justice, as had happened in the Harshad Mehta case. Indeed, How many frauds can you recall that have gone on to eventual conviction and sentencing?

Corporate governance

This situation has to change. The biggest motivator for a scamster is the secure thought that he will never be caught and, even if he is, he can keep justice at bay indefinitely. Towards end-December, the government observed what it called “India Corporate Week” and, as always in this country, it was just an occasion for industry bodies and professional associations such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) to make the right noises about their commitment to corporate governance.

What we need are not events or shows such as this as much as action on the ground. Acting quickly in areas that have a critical bearing on corporate governance such as independent directorship and audit committees by clearly specifying their scope of responsibility and their liability is more important than events that only help professional bodies such as the ICWAI or the ICAI to prove their loyalty to the government through full-page advertisements in newspapers.

The government also probably needs to turn its attention to the ICAI, whose reputation plumbed the depths when an incident of booth-capturing was reported during elections to its central and regional councils last month.

Little is known of what the government thought about this unsavoury incident that you would generally associate with antisocial elements.

Punish the guilty

Whether the ICAI has got to the bottom of the role of its members in the Satyam scam is unclear. While Price Waterhouse, the firm that audited Satyam's accounts, has overhauled its Indian set-up, the ICAI has been sitting tight on its findings.

As we mark the first anniversary of the Satyam scandal tomorrow, it would be nice if the government redoubles its efforts to bring to trial Mr Raju and his accomplices, whoever they may be.

If future Satyams are to be avoided, the government has to act resolutely in punishing the guilty and making public the contours of the scandal.

TCS, Infy, Wipro losing contracts to Emerging rivals

2010-01-05T09:44:00.000+05:30

BANGALORE: Emerging nearshore rivals, including Ness Technologies of Israel, CPM Braxis of Brazil and Mexico-headquartered Softtek are increasingly becoming attractive for top outsourcing customers such as GE, Citibank and several others seeking to work with local, specialised vendors instead of sending all projects to offshore locations like India.

At a time when India’s top tech firms Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro are redefining their positioning as global services providers by growing their presence in the emerging markets of Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia, they face stiff competition from these newer rivals.

“For many customers who already have significant presence in offshore locations like India, it’s a risk diversification,” said Jimit Arora, research director of outsourcing advisory firm Everest Group. “Some customers having 70-80 per cent of their offshore resources in India are realising that they need to look at the third category of suppliers that are local and niche,” he added.

Over the past two years, companies such as CPM Braxis, EPAM Systems, Ness Technologies, Softtek, Merchants and Spi Global have emerged as stronger rivals for Indian tech firms, especially while bidding for an outsourcing contract being fleshed out by a ‘first-time outsourcer’.

“When it comes to new business from the first-time outsourcers, these local suppliers may be gaining at the expense of multinational and offshore rivals,” added Amneet Singh, vice-president, global sourcing at the Everest Group. Mr Singh, along with Mr Arora, researched the six emerging suppliers and found that they have been growing at an average compounded growth of around 25% annually during the past few years.

Brazilian firm CPM Braxis, for instance, which counts GE, ABN Amro and Whirlpool as clients, reported revenues of around $567 million in 2008. One of the top four Brazilian banks, Bradesco, is also among the biggest customers for the company.

“Some customers, including Bradesco, would rather work with a local supplier, there’s nothing wrong. For large MNC customers, offshoring continues to be a priority,” said a senior executive at one of the top Indian tech firms. He requested anonymity because his company is currently in a financial silent period.

While these emerging outsourcing rivals are not yet in the big league of mega, multi-year contracts, they are still able to gain business because of their niche and local market expertise. On an average, these companies are able to win contracts worth $2-5 million in annual contract value.

Meanwhile, for Indian tech firms seeking to grow their base outside their home country, these emerging companies also offer potential M&A opportunities.

“Many emerging companies we spoke with believe they can become $1-billion company on their own. However, some admitted that they would be open to inorganic opportunities too,” said Mr Arora.

Indeed, emerging service providers in countries of Brazil, Argentina and Mexico such as Globant, which counts Adidas, Linked IN and Citi among its top customer and has around $100 million in revenues, are increasingly being approached by some Indian tech firms, officials told ET on condition of anonymity.

“We have had discussions with both Softtek and Globant, but I cannot comment any further,” said a senior executive at one of the tech firms exploring inorganic growth route for expansion in the emerging markets. Experts believe such fast-growing firms always make a good acquisition target.

“Given where these companies are in terms of their size and capabilities, they do make good acquisition targets for Indian companies,” agreed Mr Singh.

What makes these firms really attractive is their strong presence in some of the fastest-growing markets for software services. For instance, Ness generates about a third, or $170 million, of its revenues from Eastern European markets of Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.

“One of the more interesting prospects in this region relates to government initiatives, particularly as it relates to a ‘digitisation’ grant for the EU worth more than 10 billion euro, with ‘must use’ clauses by 2013,” observed James Friedman, analyst at the financial broking firm Susquehanna International Group (SIG).

“Ness is competing actively for this work in a number of regions, and expects Eastern Europe may improve by H2 of 2010, still targeting $300 million from this region by 2012,” he added.

Raju made gardeners, drivers rajas

2010-01-03T14:30:00.002+05:30

HYDERABAD: In disgraced Satyam boss Ramalinga Raju’s land, even gardeners were made maharajas! Several gardeners, truck drivers and others, who were working in the mango gardens and orchards — belonging to Raju brothers — for meagre salaries of Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 per month, have been found to possess more than 50 acres of land worth crores of rupees.

Not only this, these workers were also made directors of several fictitious companies floated by Raju. And a majority of these lands are situated in a single village called Loyapalli of Ibrahimpatnam mandal in Ranga Reddy district.

Records with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) show that the Raju brothers had purchased as much as 4,200 acres of land in this village alone in 2006. Though official records state that the entire land was purchased for a mere Rs 30 crore, its actual price is much more and its present value is not less than Rs 4,200 crore at the rate of Rs 1 crore per acre. The ED has so far attached 312 properties acquired by the Raju brothers allegedly with the Satyam scam money.

In 2006, for example, a 54 acre plot in Loyapalli village was purchased for Rs 36 lakh and was registered in the name of Ch Suryanarayana Raju, a gardener working in the mango orchards of Raju brothers at a monthly salary of Rs 5,000. When the ED sleuths quizzed this gardener on his source of income, he revealed that the land was purchased by the Raju brothers through SRSR Holdings company and the sale deeds and other papers were also lying with them.

“They have just used my name and the question of my paying income tax for this amount does not arise because this is not my income and I never filed any IT returns nor do I possess a PAN card,” the gardener told the ED authorities. Interestingly, after this purchase, the Raju brothers made this gardener a director in several of their fictitious companies floated for holding the land.

The same is the case with K Venkatapathi Raju, another gardener in whose name 54 acres were purchased and M V Suryanarayana Raju, a garden supervisor whose name was used for registering a 56-acre land. Likewise, S V Samba Murthy Raju, a truck driver working with the Rajus has 53 acres of land registered against his name. Samba Murthy Raju was also made director of two companies — Sahayadri Green Lands Company and Devagarbha Agros.

The EDs Hyderabad Zone authorities had attached all these properties.

TCS to step up hiring as info-tech spending takes off

2009-12-31T10:38:00.001+05:30

As demand picks up, pricing power will return. TCS has been winning deals.

— Mr N. Chandrasekaran, CEO of TCS

Adith Charlie

Mumbai, Dec. 30

In what could be a firm indicator of turnaround times for the IT industry, the CEO of India's largest IT services company said fiscal 2010-11 is likely to see his company step up the pace of hiring, give wage hikes, as well as increase capital expenditure.

“We are likely to hire more people next year ( vis-à-vis the current fiscal) and we have also increased the quantum of work done offshore. This means we have to create more facilities going forward,” Mr N Chandrasekaran, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Tata Consultancy Services, said in an interview to Business Line.

Next year's capex for the $6-billion company is likely to be higher than the Rs 1,300 crore earmarked for the current year, a figure disclosed by the group chairman, Mr Ratan Tata, at the company's annual general meeting last year.

However, Mr Chandrasekaran would not provide concrete numbers as the company is still in the process of firming up its plans for the next fiscal, ahead of its third quarterly results that are to be announced on January 15.

This revival in IT spend is propelling TCS to firm up hiring plans for next year and it is being led by companies in the banking, financial services space across geographies.

Positive indicators

Though companies in sectors such as manufacturing, hi-tech, telecom and manufacturing are still ‘not out of the woods', there are enough indications of things revving up next year, said Mr. Chandrasekaran. “I believe that during the course of the year these sectors will turn positive and deliver growth. The good news is the decline (in these sectors) has stopped,” he said.

TCS expects 2010 to be a better year for the company and the IT industry as a whole. And the growth is largely going to be volume-driven.

“Short term, there may not be a pricing uptake; but I do not expect a (pricing) decline either. As demand picks up, pricing power will return,” said Mr Chandrasekaran.

The good news is that discretionary or optional technology spending among corporations also seems to be making a comeback, especially in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) space. TCS Bancs (its financial products suite), which is “positioned against discretionary budgets”, has been winning deals across geographies, securing engagements even in geographies such as continental Europe that are yet to see an uptake, he said.

Better clarity

“Fundamentally, there is lot more clarity and there is a systematic way of approaching business from the customers' end vis-à-vis last year. We just hope that Europe as a geography also starts showing signs of recovery,” he said.

Starting January, TCS will approach campuses for recruitment for 2010-11. It may be noted that for the current fiscal the company has already given 24,888 offer letters for campus recruits, a good percentage of whom are expected to join, in a staggered manner through the fiscal.

Earlier, TCS had indicated that it had nearly frozen lateral hiring for the current fiscal. That too seems to be changing and the company has increased the pace of hiring laterals or experienced professionals.

TCS, which had clamped down on salary hikes this year, is likely to be more lenient next year. The company is internally huddled in discussions to see how much wage hikes can be implemented next year, said Mr Chandrasekaran.

For the quarter ended September 2009, TCS had reported a 29 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 1,642 crore against Rs 1,271 crore in the corresponding year ago period

Has Microsoft Turned Into The New IBM?

2009-12-31T00:24:00.000+05:30

Surfing the web today, I came across a very interesting interview on SeattlePi with Don Dodge, who was Microsoft’s Director of Business Development for the Emerging Business Team until getting laid off last month. During the interview, he revealed his opinions on Microsoft, their current situation and where they’re heading. He also revealed that he thinks “Microsoft is a lot like IBM was in 1985”, going on to say that “after 20 years they are losing the innovation edge.” This got me thinking; has Microsoft lost the ability to innovate after being the most dominative force in computing since the late 1980’s? And if so, why?

I think a key to the solution is the sheer amount of things Microsoft does. When you think of the number of markets Microsoft compete in, you can understand that it’s extremely difficult, maybe impossible, to dominate every market. Not only do Microsoft develop and maintain the Windows OS, they also compete in the market for smart phones with Windows Mobile; the gaming market with the Xbox 360 and internet search with Bing.

Microsoft only dominate one of these markets with Windows – even with competition from Mac OS X and Linux, 88.5% of the world’s population uses Windows on their PC’s, which is beyond monopolisation… Despite this, 62.2% of computer users are using Windows XP, which completely supports Dodge’s accusations that Microsoft aren’t innovating as much as they were before. Rightly or wrongly, Vista was never a favourite of consumers as it had a lot of bad press on and off the web. In my opinion,
Windows 7 is a solid operating system, and when I’m using Windows, I use Windows 7.

When comparing the progress of Windows to its nearest competitor, how has it advanced since Windows XP was released in 2001? When Windows XP was introduced to the world, Apple had just released Mac OS X 10.1, and compared to Microsoft’s monopoly, Apple wasn’t in a good position with many criticising 10.1 for its bad performance. The next time we saw a consumer OS from Microsoft, however, was in January 2007, and the results weren’t worth the 6 year wait for many…

In the same time, Apple had released Mac OS X 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4, with Leopard coming 6 months later. So what were Microsoft doing in those 6 years? To the average user, there wasn’t much reason to upgrade from XP to Vista, because people were all too familiar with XP – why switch to have software incompatibilities and an unfamiliar interface?

On the mobile front, having used all three main players in the smartphone market right now (Windows Mobile 6.5, iPhone OS and Android), I’d only consider using iPhone OS or Android. Microsoft’s got a lot of catching up to do, and has fallen behind Apple and Google in terms of innovation and ease of use.

Navigating around a Windows Mobile device often feels far too long winded, with menus and menus of choices it’s simply not as user friendly as the iPhone or Android, even with HTC’s custom interface. Add this to the numerous delays of Windows Mobile 7, there’s no way I’d buy a Windows smartphone right now.

Having gone from the innovator to the company playing catch up with every other major player, Microsoft needs a new direction to wow people again. They’re very much in the gaming market with the Xbox 360, and hopefully we’ll see some pushes towards a better search with Bing in 2010 – how about a consumer friendly surface-like device? Competition for Apple’s tablet anyone?

PricewaterhouseCoopers Executive Director Resigns

2009-12-30T00:12:00.000+05:30

NEW DELHI --Auditing company PricewaterhouseCoopers, or PwC, Tuesday said Executive Director Dinesh Kanabar and some tax executive directors have resigned.

"We have appointed Ketan Dalal and Shyamal Mukherjee as the new joint leaders for PwC's tax and regulatory practice," PwC said in an emailed statement.

PwC didn't give a specific reason for the resignations or the dates of the same. It didn't divulge the names of the tax executive directors who had stepped down, nor mention how many.

Price Waterhouse, the Indian affiliate of PwC, has been under the scanner because of its previous links with Satyam Computer Services Ltd., whose founder and then chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju, revealed a massive fraud at the Hyderabad-based company earlier in January.

Price Waterhouse audited Satyam Computer's financial statements from the quarter ended June 30, 2000, through to the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2008. The audit house subsequently said its accounts shouldn't be relied upon.

Two of the auditors--S. Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Taluri--were arrested in January in connection with the Satyam Computer case.

PwC has said that since then it has been making "a significant investment in training and taking other steps to further enhance audit quality" in India.

Earlier this month, PwC named Gautam Banerjee as the chairman for its India auditing business after Ramesh Rajan stepped down from the post.

Millions in Britain face pay freezes, salary cuts in 2010

2009-12-27T21:38:00.001+05:30

LONDON: The new year is going to be a cold one for the salaried class in Britain as millions of people are likely to see their spending power

slashed again in 2010 due to salary cuts and pay freezes, a media report says.

"Millions of people face a second year of pay freezes or salary cuts next year dashing hopes that the end of the recession will ease the squeeze on family budgets," the Sunday Times said.

Up to two-thirds of companies in the private sector are planning to freeze or cut pay next year -- a substantial increase compared with this year, the newspaper said.

Quoting a poll by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), the daily said 58 per cent of company directors were planning wage freezes during 2010 and another 5 per cent planned to cut pay next year.

This grim forecast has, however, enraged union leaders and brought a series of strike-threats for slashing workers' spending power for the second year running.

Unions said the state of the economy should not be used as an "excuse" to impose pay freezes by companies continuing to make profits.

Derek Simpson, Joint General Secretary of Unite, the biggest trade union in Britain with two million members told the Sunday Times, "Our members have been prepared to share the pain and take pay freezes this year. But we will challenge any attempt to freeze pay in companies that are making profits next year."

British Airways, Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, Swinton insurance and Ladbrokes have already announced plans to freeze pay next year.

Citing BCC Director General David Frost the daily said, "we face a tough year ahead -- it will be a really long haul. The stark reality is that business finances are still under incredible pressure and they are doing everything they can to keep hold of cash."

Despite signs of economic growth, millions of consumers face a bleak 2010.

Value added tax (VAT) is set to rise to 17.5 per cent this week, unemployment is expected to increase further and City forecasters predict interest rates to rise later in the year. Personal tax allowances will be frozen in April when the new 50 per cent income tax rate also comes in, the report added.

Britain is predicted to have moved out of recession during the final quarter of this year, the last of the leading European economies to do so.

Infosys set to get K'taka contract on T&D losses

2009-12-25T01:11:00.001+05:30

The Rs 380-crore tender is part of the Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme of the central govt.

Infosys Technologies, India’s second largest software services company, is close to winning a Rs 380-crore contract from the Karnataka government’s electricity supply companies, aimed at stemming transmission and distribution losses.

The contract is being awarded as part of the Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (APDRP) initiated by the central government.

Industry sources indicate that Infosys has emerged as the lowest from among 11 bidders, including Wipro, TCS and KLG Systems. A company spokesperson declined to comment.

Indian software service vendors are all vying for a piece of the Rs 10,000-crore of contracts under the APDRP, more so as this is a programme which could be expanded later. TCS and HCL, Infosys' big rivals, have won similar contracts on addressing T&D losses in other states.

Infosys has been stepping up its India presence during the past 18 months, setting up a separate India business unit. It has so far bagged three major projects in the government sector. Earlier, the company had won a project to set up and manage a central processing centre for the income tax department and one from the ministry of commerce to develop an eBiz portal to help provide one-stop services to industry.

The company has also bagged a pilot project to roll out an Integrated Coach Management System for the Indian Railways. Though the initial (pilot) project cost is small, its success will determine the schedule on when the railways will go for floating the final tender for the project, estimated to be Rs 210 crore.

Cognizant picks up 700 Anna varsity students

2009-12-23T10:39:00.003+05:30

Time to celebrate: Jubilant Anna University students celebrate their getting job offersfrom Cognizant Technology Solutions, in the presence of Dr P. Mannar Jawahar (right),Vice-Chancellor, Anna University, and Mr R. Ramkumar (second from left), Vice-President, Corporate Communications, Cognizant, at the university premises onTuesday.- Bijoy Ghosh

Hindu

Chennai, Dec. 22

The US-based Cognizant Technology Solutions offered jobs to over seven hundred students of Anna University on Tuesday. Though this was less than the 1,000 offers that Cognizant made last year, Dr P. Mannar Jawahar, Vice Chancellor, Anna University, is happy.“The numbers may be less from Cognizant, but we are still happy considering the downturn in the software industry,” he told Business Line.Cognizant was the first large recruiter this year in the university that includes the College of Engineering, Guindy, Madras Institute of Technology, Chrompet and Alagappa College of Technology.While Tata Consultancy Services, which is also a large recruiter, is visiting the campus on Wednesday, over 55 more companies across various sectors plan to visit in the next few days, he said.

The starting salary offered by Cognizant remained unchanged from last year, at Rs 3 lakh a year. Around 1,640 students took the test, of whom 1,345 were shortlisted and 700 were offered jobs, Dr Jawahar said.Before Cognizant, ‘core and dream' companies such as Caterpillar and Larsen & Toubro that offer a starting salary of over Rs 4 lakh have given job offers to around 300 students, he said.

MindTree: Looking for Buys in $50 Million-$100 Million Size

2009-12-22T12:46:00.000+05:30

BANGALORE -- MindTree Ltd. is looking for acquisitions valued at $50 million-$100 million to help in its bid to post $1 billion in revenue by 2014, the Indian software exporter's chief executive said.

"I would think, maybe 20% of our revenue would come from acquisitions as part of this $1 billion vision," Krishnakumar Natarajan, who is also the managing director of the company, told Dow Jones Newswires in a recent interview.

The company had reported $269.1 million in revenue in the last fiscal year ended March 31.

The company is looking for acquisitions to expand its infrastructure management and package application businesses, Mr. Natarajan said. MindTree's last major acquisition was in 2008, when it bought product-related testing services firm Aztecsoft for $90 million.

Bangalore-based MindTree specializes in providing services to the manufacturing, banking and financial services sectors. Like its peers, it is slowly recovering from the effects of the global economic slowdown as technology spending makes a modest return in developed nations.

JP Morgan Asset Management Extends Outsourced Services Contract With HCL

2009-12-21T14:47:00.000+05:30

To provide continuity and certainty around life and pensions administration for Save & Prosper
HCL IBS, part of HCL Technologies (HCL), has extended its contract with JP Morgan Asset Management to deliver life and pension administration services for Save & Prosper, the global asset management arm of JP Morgan Chase & Co.
JP Morgan has claimed that the contract extension will reduce cost and deliver service enhancements to improve the policyholder experience. HCL will continue to provide an end-to-end service solution to enhance policy administration, finance, actuarial and call center services. The new contract services 185,000 policies and provides additional costs savings to JP Morgan Asset Management over the contract's lifetime in the order of GBP 8.5mn.
Peter Ball, CEO of Save & Prosper, said: "JP Morgan Asset Management has long enjoyed a strong relationship with HCL and we are happy that our partnership has been extended. I am confident that HCL will continue to provide great service and value to our policyholders."
Stephen White, COO of HCL IBS said: "We are delighted that JP Morgan Asset Management has reconfirmed the value it places in our partnership through this contract extension. We look forward to adding further value through the introduction of wider HCL service capabilities to help the company achieve its business needs. HCL's governance model means that strategic needs are given as much focus as operational delivery. Our platform has the capability to deliver cost certainty and provide those benefits on long term contracts.
"We have developed a growing onshore/offshore business model, which will enable further capability developments and efficiency improvements. We are keen to grow our Life and Pensions business, in both the open and closed book space, and this announcement demonstrates we provide a compelling and competitive proposition in this market."
David Mitchell, SVP of IT research at analyst firm Ovum, said: "Outsourcing of specific business functions or business areas is most effective when the outsourcing provider has domain specific capabilities. The recent life and pensions administration contract with HCL for Save & Prosper with JP Morgan is based on the HCL industry specific expertise in this sector, offering JP Morgan an enhanced service for their customers and staff while still being very cost effective."
HCL Technologies offers integrated portfolio of services including software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and R&D services and BPO.

Satyam, slowdowns make 2009 hard for software industry

2009-12-20T18:37:00.000+05:30

PTI

NEW DELHI: The Satyam Computer accounting scam, slowdown and resultant hiring freeze by many made 2009 a forgettable year for the Indian Information Technology industry.

There was never a dull moment for bad news during the year, given the fact that Satyam's founder B Ramalinga Raju came out of the closet with an accounting fraud on January 7. The scam tarnished the credibility of India's IT story, requiring others to do a lot of convincing to retain clients.

As dramatic it was, the World Bank, within a week of the Satyam scam coming to light, announced it had banned, besides Satyam, Wipro and Megasoft from working for it for allegedly "providing improper benefits to the Bank staff" during the course of their projects with it. While the cases dated back to mid-2007, the timing of the disclosures only helped compound the woes of the IT industry.

To give the government its due credit, it acted swiftly by superseding the Satyam Board, which brought in new auditors to restate accounts, and ascertained employee count and within months found a new owner in Tech Mahindra. Satyam has since been renamed Mahindra Satyam.

Multiple agencies probed the scam, whose size was initially estimated at Rs 7,800 crore, and Raju, once a celebrated IT icon, is in custody awaiting trial.

GlaxoSmithKline and HCL in IT outsourcing deal

2009-12-17T18:40:00.000+05:30

Healthcare company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has signed a five-year outsourcing agreement with HCL Technology division HCL Axon.

Under the agreement, Indian based outsourcer, HCL will provide GSK with systems integration, SAP implementation and IT consulting services for the international company.

The appointment comes a year after Indian-based HCL Technologies’ acquisition of UK based Axon.

“This is an important win for us, it keeps our objective of becoming the largest global SAP-based business transformation provider on track and confirms the rationale behind the merger with HCL technology.” said Mr Steve Cardell, President, HCL Axon

Infosys Opens Development Centre in Brazil

2009-12-16T11:41:00.001+05:30

Infosys Technologies has opened its wholly owned Brazilian subsidiary - Infosys Tecnologia Do Brasil Ltda. The first development centre of this subsidiary is in Belo Horizonte, the third largest metropolitan area in Brazil after Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, with a mature Information Technology (IT) services and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) ecosystem and an established talent pipeline.

This new centre will offer Infosys' complete suite of services to Infosys' Brazilian clients and Brazilian subsidiaries of global customers.

Infosys has been present in the Latin American market since the creation of the company's Mexican subsidiary - Infosys Technologies S. De R.L. De CV, in 2007. The center in Belo Horizonte is Infosys' third development center in Latin America following the recent opening of Infosys' second center in Monterrey, Mexico.

The company has been investing and strengthening its position in Latin America to expand its footprint in the region and also to leverage the near shore advantage of similar time zones for global clients. The two development centers in Mexico service 32 clients and employ 357 professionals.

CEO and MD of Infosys, S Gopalakrishnan said, "Brazil is the largest IT and BPO services market in Latin America, with the eighth highest IT and BPO services spend in the world. The growth forecasts for the IT-BPO sector in Brazil have remained high despite the global economic crisis. Along with our centres in Mexico, our presence here will strengthen our ability to address both Spanish and Portuguese speaking markets in Latin America, driving our business growth in the region."

Infosys has appointed Puneet Gill as the head of this development centre. Gill has been with Infosys since 2003 and headed BPO operations in Mexico earlier.

Dheeshjith V G, head of new markets and services, Infosys said, "We are fully committed to Brazil and will be leveraging our presence there to offer our full range of IT Consulting, IT services and BPO for our global and Brazilian clients across all industries including banking, financial services, insurance, manufacturing, retail, distribution, telecom, energy, resources and other industries."

'BFSI is the next big thing in domestic outsourcing' - IBM India

2009-12-15T13:51:00.002+05:30

BANGALORE: TEN years ago, the world’s biggest IT company then, IBM, did the unthinkable: it struck a deal with a company in India (Cadbury ) to

take care of its IT needs. It was one of the country’s first domestic IT outsourcing deals. The rest, as they say, is history. More than a dozen such deals later — including the game-changing contract with Bharti Airtel — IBM is the king of the hill in domestic IT outsourcing. Recently,ET NOW’s R Sridharan caught up with Shanker Annaswamy, regional general manager of IBM India & South Asia, to talk about Big Blue’s journey so far and the road ahead. Excerpts from the exclusive interview:

Shanker, it’s been 10 years since IBM bagged its first outsourcing contract in India . It’s been a long journey. How do you look back on it?

1999 was indeed when we signed the first contract, but 2004 marked the biggest turning point for us — the outsourcing deal with Bharti. It was $750-million contract, and 2006 followed with Idea cellular and Vodafone. I think, we’ve done wonderfully well.

If you look at the last year and a half, every Indian IT vendor has been hit by the global downturn, especially in the financial services market. How has IBM in India coped with the downturn?

Given the global market conditions and the fact that large deals were not happening, we were looking at our successes here, and asking ourselves how we can replicate the successes beyond the telecom industry. I am very happy to share with you that we looked at customers beyond telecom, to customers like Amul and media companies like Sun TV.

You have a lot of Indian vendors now competing for domestic outsourcing deals. Wipro, for example, recently bagged the Aircel deal, which IBM was pitching for as well. How do you see the competition from India vendors?

It took some time for other competitors to look at, understand the model and then go and win one or two accounts. But if you look at the real strategy behind it, it’s not simple IT consolidation. It is your capability to bring in tools and asset-based services than labourbased services, and bring research to play.

You also have HP and Dell, which were traditionally hardware firms, getting into services. Are they a bigger threat?

Industry domain knowledge and capabilities are not built overnight. The differentiator for us is very clearly our integration: consulting and system and technology business like the mainframes and big computers, then the software business, which is an integrating business, then we have services end-to-end . Our ability to take a certain portion of the customer business and turn it into a profitable proposition for them is very big and it will take competition time to catch up.

But what are the other sectors apart from telecom and manufacturing that will open up to outsourcing within India?

BFSI area would be a potential opportunity for us to look at. Public sector will take time. Healthcare could be a huge opportunity, but it may take some time as well.

IBM doesn’t disclose its India headcount, but as I understand it’s 90,000 or even one lakh. How does this number split up?

Actually, we are 73,000-plus employees and we are growing. The large proportion of the employee population is in global delivery missions , including the global delivery and then the IBM Daksh BPO outsourcing processes. The rest of the business will be then the domestic business, research labs, software labs and other groups.

At what point would IBM want to de-risk its India strategy or do you think that’s not a concern?

There is no timeline by which we go. This base of 73,000 was built not on a certain number to be achieved or cut off, it depends on our customers, our clients, their projects, and their core competence and domain expertise that comes in. So, India continues to be a key component of this and I would expect it to grow.

Finally, before the global economy slipped into recession, there was a lot of talk about how India had become an expensive place for IT outsourcing. Is India still competitive?

I think so. We will continue to be so. Because India has a unique advantage of being a pioneer here and also it has a large skill base, and the track record. But we have to be careful not to sit on these successes but continue to train and skill our future workforce.

The next biggest worry for Mahindra Satyam is staff exodus

2009-12-14T20:44:00.003+05:30

BANGALORE | HYDERABAD: O R N Suresh, the 33-year-old manager working on a British Petroleum (BP) project at Mahindra Satyam, the decision not

to take up job offers from rival Indian firms has not really been a smart move. It was quite risky, to say the least, to continue working in a company which was witnessing a few contracts move to rival IT companies. Infact, after BP decided to shift projects from his company to TCS and Wipro earlier this year, things were not the same at Mahindra Satyam.

“We never had any issues with the delivery of projects, and even though I had an offer to serve at Wipro for another oil firm some eight months ago, I thought Satyam offered better job satisfaction,” says Suresh.

As Mahindra Satyam tries its best to regain the faith of customers, employees and investors, the company faces a daunting task. While the global recession ensured that voluntary attrition remained abysmally low, the improving business environment will soon witness rivals wooing the talent which is available. And they are sure to poach in on the highly skilled hands who are willing to jump the fence at Mahindra Satyam.

Some 400 professionals who are at present working for BP at Satyam will soon become redundant after BP completely shifts the projects to rival TCS and Wipro over the next few months.

Apart from customer attrition, many Satyam employees are also realising that the new management’s relentless focus on pruning the costs means far less job security than nine months ago.

“The Rajus were extremely good at dealing with people, whereas the Mahindras have created a lot of discomfiture in the organisation by driving away our senior leadership and imposing their decisions on us. This makes us feel like outsiders. But for the fraud, an average Satyamite will still prefer Raju to the Mahindras as an employer,” said a senior employee who is currently working for banking and financial services customers at Mahindra Satyam.
The Satyam scam doesn’t seem to have dented the image of B Ramalinga Raju, especially among the employees, who still repose a lot of faith in him and the previous management.

A worsening global economic crisis ensured that there were no jobs available for those seeking better options in the market. For hundreds of Satyam employees who were on the bench, the new cost-cutting strategies and tactics were not really very employee-friendly.

“You cannot really blame the new management - even Wipro was forced to lay off many of it employees during the recession,” said another employee who is currently working at the company’s back office division. However, many of the employees feel that the new management is not able to show empathy to the present employees the way the old Satyam management used to.

Perhaps it is this disconnect between the employees and the management which will work in favour of other IT companies who are eagerly waiting to recruit skilled hands willing to jump the boat. “We always thought Satyam was an over democratic company. It was a friendly company where even those on the bench was treated royally. Tech Mahindra has adopted a hire-and-fire policy and the employee satisfaction levels are very low,” said an associate with the Citigroup project.

Meanwhile, one of the biggest worries which Mahindra Satyam has to face is its fading popularity as an employer. And, whenever business picks up, the company may lose out to rival companies in acquiring new talent given the image it has conjured up in the market.

“I will never recommend anybody to join Satyam. Firstly, from a $2 billion company, it has been reduced to a mid-sized IT player. Secondly, the new management is yet to visualise and comprehend the scale of Satyam’s operations, employee and customer expectations. It’s like a cafe owner buying Taj Krishna. Moreover, with no big projects on the cards, I do not think anybody should risk their career by taking up a job there,” said a Merrill Lynch project head.

Large multinational technology firms such as Accenture and IBM, apart from domestic rivals have already started their recruiting campaigns. “The management’s toughest challenge now is to retain the workforce they have. With Accenture and IBM conducting walk-in interviews every Saturday, more than a quarter of Satyam’s associates’ resumes are circulating in these offices,” said a Mahindra Satyam employee working for an insurance customer.

IBM Launches Cloud Computing Lab

2009-12-14T07:27:00.000+05:30

IBM said Thursday that it opened a research lab in Hong Kong dedicated to developing products and services for the cloud computing market. At the outset, the lab will dedicate resources to supporting IBM's online LotusLive offering.

IBM currently counts more than 18 million users of LotusLive, which offers Web-based access to e-mail, instant messaging, calendaring, and other collaboration tools. The service starts at $3.00 per month, per user.

IBM said the Hong Kong center will research and develop best practices around various issues related to cloud computing, including security, privacy, and reliability. The lab is co-located with IBM's existing China Development Laboratory, which employs more than 5,000 developers.

"As the first cloud computing laboratory in Hong Kong to serve as a global resource for cloud-based collaboration services, the laboratory marks a milestone for IBM and for the information technology industry in Hong Kong," said Dominic Tong, IBM's general manager for Hong Kong/China, in a statement.

"The opening of the laboratory demonstrates Hong Kong's advantage as a global hub for world-class information technology and online services and we are delighted that it aligns with the government's agenda of developing Hong Kong into a center of excellence in innovation and technology," said Tong.

Attendees at an event marking the lab's opening included Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Tsang, Commerce and Economic Development Secretary Duncan Warren Prescod, and IT Legislative Councilor Samson Tam.

IBM estimates the market for cloud, or hosted, computing products is growing 28% annually, and will increase from $47 billion in 2008 to $126 billion in 2012.

Mindtree Meets With Corporate Information Systems

2009-12-13T19:23:00.002+05:30

Started in 1999, Mindtree is a global IT solutions company, with just under 8,000 employees in 20 countries. As a practice, the company gathers its best minds every year in Bangalore to participate in the company's annual planning exercise. With the slowdown, that seemed like a luxury.

Highlights

-- The corporate information systems (CIS) team included video, IM, and presentation sharing capabilities.

-- The initiative, which cost Rs 14.25 lakh (US$30,360) saved the company just under a crore.

"The unprecedented turmoil required MindTree to scrutinize every expenditure item," recalls Sudhir K. Reddy, CIO, MindTree. "One day, I received a call from our chief strategy officer asking me if there was anyway to minimize travel for the annual plan meeting using technology."

Reddy examined telepresence-on-rent and HD video conferencing. But given the size of the meeting - 120 people from up to 14 cities around the world - and the duration of the meeting - six full days - Reddy and his team quickly zeroed in on video collaboration.

The solution Reddy and the corporate information systems (CIS) team deployed included video, IM, and presentation sharing capabilities. An audio bridge was kept as back up.

Reddy's team then evaluated the voice and video quality over different conditions. An optimal configuration was demonstrated to two top management representatives and when they got the go-ahead, the team asked for the meeting's timetable. The list of participants was broken down into those from the local MindTree campus and those from elsewhere. Cameras were shipped to all participants at remote locations. Test conferences were scheduled by CIS teams in all time-zones.

"We had carefully reserved about 384 kbps per external participant and all conference rooms (about 15Mbps in total) to ensure that the video did not freeze or break-up," says Reddy.

But the solution wasn't all technology. The senior management team, which was not used to conducting such important meetings over video conferencing let alone desktop video conferencing, needed convincing. To ensure the technology did not let them down, 10 CIS members babysat the meetings. "If we had to attribute our success to one factor, it would be the meticulous planning and orchestration of the event by the CIS team," says Reddy.

The initiative, which cost Rs 14.25 lakh saved the company just under a crore.

Infosys to make China biggest development centre outside India

2009-12-13T12:50:00.001+05:30

LOOKING EAST.

Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan

K. Giriprakash

Swetha Kannan

Bangalore, Dec. 11

In a far-reaching move, IT bellwether Infosys Technologies has decided to make China its biggest development centre outside India.

“China will be our biggest development centre outside India while the US will be the largest market in terms of revenues and India will remain the largest in terms of physical presence,” the Infosys Technologies Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, told Business Line.

For the quarter ended September 30, 2009, 9.7 per cent of Infosys' revenue was generated from the rest of the world which includes all regions except North America, Europe and India. North America contributed to 65.9 per cent, Europe 23.2 per cent, and India 1.2 per cent. Infosys does not give country-wise break up of revenues.

As Infosys takes a big leap forward into the next decade, it wants to deepen its geographical presence, said Mr Gopalakrishnan. One of the major reasons for developing the China centre was because of the huge potential it sees there and also the quality of talent pool available there.

Currently, Infosys has two development centres in China: Shanghai and Hangzhou, with a total of 1,258 people working there. The centre delivers BPO and IT services to clients in the US, Europe and Asia. Mr Gopalakrishnan said that the company is also working closely with the Chinese Government to tap and subsequently nurture the IT talent pool there.

“Our China Development Centre has grown in the last one year... We have been expanding our delivery capability in horizontal services such as enterprise solutions, independent validation services, and product engineering as well as investing in contextualising our banking solution product, Finacle, for the Chinese market,” he said.

He added, Infosys will also continue to invest and expand in markets other than China such as Poland and other European countries and Mexico, the Philippines and Brazil, because of the advantage they offer in terms of round-the-clock support to local language support.

Global consultancy firm, KPMG's Executive Director and Head of IT advisory, Mr Kumar Parakala, told Business Linethat Infosys' move showed its visionary strategy for its company. "By 2020, it is expected that China will have the largest English-speaking population in the whole world. Hence, China will have the talent pool needed to support the IT sector," he said.

He said more and more IT multinationals are using the global delivery model for their businesses with presence in all the right places including China. "Therefore, Indian MNCs can get significantly disadvantaged if they do not have a presence in China," he pointed out. He said if Indian companies start setting up their centres in China, firms in China will do the same leading to both the countries leveraging each other's strengths.

Wipro, Microsoft, Intel, Infosys get maximum H-1B visas in 2009

2009-12-11T17:09:00.000+05:30

By Moira Herbst
Even as job losses in the US mount, employers have stepped up the hiring of skilled workers from abroad, according to data from the US Citizenship & Immigration Services. The acceleration in recent weeks has put companies close to exhausting the 65,000 visas allotted each year for foreign hires under what's known as the H-1B program. Some 61,500 visas had been used as of Dec. 8, and the last visas are likely to be claimed within weeks. Once that happens, companies won't be able to use the program to bring in additional workers until October, the start of the government's fiscal year.

"The numbers are surprising, considering the state of the economy," says Ron Hira, associate professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology. "With 15.4 million people unemployed in the U.S., employers should be able to find qualified workers here." The H-1B program allows employers to sponsor skilled workers from overseas for up to three years, with the possibility of extending for additional years.

DECLINING NUMBERS

The mix of companies receiving work visas is changing in ways that could dull at least some criticism of the program. In past years outsourcing companies, including many based in India, have received a substantial chunk of the visas. That's led opponents to charge that the program was being used to send American jobs abroad, since many H-1B employees train at client sites in the U.S. and then rotate back to their home countries to handle similar tasks. But the number of visas received by many non-U.S. outsourcers is declining. Of the top 200 recipients of H-1B visas in fiscal 2009, ended in September, offshore outsourcers got about 22%, or 5,663, down from 38% in fiscal 2008.

Non-U.S. outsourcers still claimed 6 of the top 10 places in fiscal 2009, although the numbers were off for the largest operators. India's Infosys Technologies (INFY) topped the list in fiscal 2008, with 4,559 visas, but last year got only 440. Wipro (WIT) was the largest visa recipient in 2009, with 1,964, down from 2,678 in 2008. Sridhar Ramasubbu, Wipro's chief financial officer for international operations, says the drop is the result of lower demand caused by the recession and changes in the company's workforce. "We're now operating in 58 countries," he says.

U.S. companies have become more active in the program. Of the top 200 recipients in 2009, American businesses accounted for 49% of the visas, up from 43% in 2008. Microsoft (MSFT) was No. 2 on the list with 1,318 approvals, while Intel (INTC) ranked No. 3 with 723. The chip giant says it's using the visas to recruit for high-skill posts in software and component design. "We only use visas for job categories with a [domestic] skills shortage," says spokeswoman Lisa Malloy.

With the Obama Administration struggling to create jobs, politicians are debating whether the visa program needs fundamental change. On Nov. 19, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill to bar major companies that lay off U.S. workers from hiring foreign labor through H-1B and other programs. The legislation, which faces significant hurdles, would apply to companies that have cut 50 or more employees within the past year. "We have a responsibility to ensure that companies do not use the temporary guest-worker program to replace American workers with cheaper labor from overseas," says Sanders.

Herbst is a reporter for BusinessWeek.

Infosys likely to offer 13,000 jobs on campuses

2009-12-10T18:47:00.001+05:30

BANGALORE: Infosys Technologies, the country’s second largest IT services exporter, is likely to make 13,000 campus offers to fresh engineering

graduates who are expected to join during the course of fiscal 2011.

Interacting with mediapersons here on Wednesday, Nandita Gurjar, senior VP, Infosys said that they have already started going to campuses in about 700 engineering colleges. Infosys had made 20,000 offers to engineering graduates for the 2009 fiscal, though only around 75-80 % of the students actually join the company.

The Indian IT services industry has discontinued the earlier practice of selecting the students a year before they complete their graduation and is now visiting colleges in the final semester itself. According to the Infosys official, they would be closing the 2009 fiscal with around 18,000 freshers and 3,500 experienced hires and it is expected that the same hiring numbers is likely for the coming fiscal.

The compensation package for the students coming into Infosys from the next fiscal will be same as last year.
The campus offers for the Indian IT industry had run into certain rough weather during the FY09 with certain companies delaying the entry of these students and in some cases putting them on a different stream of work.

Vineet Nayyar is Satyam’s chief

2009-12-10T18:45:00.000+05:30

HYDERABAD: Mahindra Satyam has announced the appointment of Vineet Nayyar as the company’s chairman. Nayyar was so far heading the comp

any as vice-chairman.

Announcing this after the company’s board meeting, a Mahindra Satyam statement also said that the company had appointed former Sebi chairman M Damodaran and Gautam Kaji as additional directors with immediate effect, expanding its board to eight members.

Meanwhile, the company said it had appointed Deloitte Haskins & Sells as the company’s statutory auditor for fiscal year ended March 31, 2009 as well as fiscal year ended March 31, 2010. Deloitte Haskins & Sells, one of the two audit firms roped in by the postscam Satyam Board to restate accounts, will vet the accounts of Mahindra group company for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 fiscals as statutory auditor.

The company, which was acquired by Tech Mahindra in April, has secured time until June 2010 from the Company Law Board to file financials, including quarterly results.

Satyam employees fooled to work on fake projects

2009-12-09T16:41:00.000+05:30

Hyderabad: Satyam ex-chairman Ramalinga Raju's fraud game did not spare even its employees. While it inflated revenue through fake invoices, the company created teams to work on the fake projects. The employees working on these 'projects' were made to believe there were clients waiting for these products to be delivered.

According to the finds of the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI), the employees were also regularly sent emails about the product and project progress as if they were all coming from the clients abroad. But the emails were fake and were used only to keep the employees engaged, reports DNA.

The fraudulent chairman along with the finance in-charges and the core team created at least seven projects, showing that clients were waiting for these products to be delivered. There was regular exchange of mails from the management to the employees to give an impression of the keen interest of management in execution of these projects.

The investigation also found the invoices do not match with the ledgers of banks with which Satyam had transacted in the U.S. "However, the ledgers maintained by Satyam were dishonestly and fraudulently forged pertaining to these seven customers to incorporate the collections pertaining to all the 63 invoices," the CBI said in its latest chargesheet.

What has caught the investigators by surprise is the way the emails to employees for monitoring the progress of the fake projects were generated. The CBI found that they were all generated from Hyderabad. "Detailed analysis of the emails revealed that the internet protocol addresses from which the emails were sent at the relevant time and date were all from within Hyderabad itself, which clearly shows that such emails have never emanated from these seven foreign customers. Further, it was also established that these emails were relayed by the Rediffmail server which has got a paid service facility called Domain Services, which facilitates its clients to create email IDs at their own domain names.

In this case, it was found that the payments for the said services were made through Bank of Baroda Visa credit card which belongs to D Venkatapathy Raju (one of the accused)," the chargesheet said. These email IDs were freely used by the core team working on fabricating the accounts to give sanctity to the fake projects. "For the purpose of executing the projects, which were never delivered to the customers, the accused have wasted thousands of man hours of the associates of Satyam there by incurring a wasteful expenditure to the tune of Rs65.88 crore towards the salaries of the associates and other overheads," the CBI said.

HCL Tech bags 5-year order from News Corp's UK arm

2009-12-09T12:35:00.000+05:30

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Dec 8

HCL Technologies on Tuesday announced it has bagged a multi-million pound, five-year infrastructure management and transformation order from News International - a U.K. subsidiary of News Corporation.

The company produces some of the U.K.'s most widely read newspapers including The Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times. HCL Technologies will manage News International's data centre and network environment. Initially, it will involve transformation projects such as migrating operating systems to lower-cost industry standard solutions, business continuity improvements and virtualisation, consolidation and standardisation of storage and servers.

The Indian company is already working with other News Corporation companies for their technology infrastructure management requirements, a statement said.

“We see the benefit of working with the same global partners across News Corp,” said Mr Andrew Hickey, CIO of News International and a member of News Corp's CIO Council.

HCL Technologies clientele includes over 40 media and entertainment companies globally.The company had recently announced wins from Reader's Digest Association and Viacom Inc.

IT Clients Look Beyond India

2009-12-09T09:18:00.000+05:30

BANGALORE: IT buyers are expanding their global sourcing networks as part of an effort to reduce their dependence on a few large locations such as India, says a new report by Everest Research Institute.

Recent events impacting offshore locations, such as terror attacks and typhoons, and suppliers (such as bankruptcies , frauds) have underscored the need for holistic risk management in global sourcing, the report says.

“Traditionally, global sourcing risk management approaches remained largely focused on engagement-level performance management. However, a more sophisticated approach to risk management compels buyers to understand risk from the entire sourcing ecosystem spanning each individual supplier and delivery location as well as the collective portfolio of suppliers and locations,’’ says the report.

The institute also says that another new global sourcing paradigm is emerging and generating additional push for creating a global delivery network.

“This new paradigm is associated with a more robust and complex demand profile that mandates a global delivery network and is creating further impetus for expanding the delivery footprint beyond the traditionally favoured offshore destination, India,” Everest says. A combination of these two factors is creating a demand for global locations that support technology and business process delivery. Clients now have a number of credible offshore destinations to choose from.

The report identifies these areas as Brazil, Central and Eastern Europe, Israel, Mexico, the Philippines and South Africa. These markets represent a blend of locations that are either superior skill markets or large talent markets that global sourcing buyers can’t ignore.

“The supplier landscape in these emerging markets includes a mix of global majors, India-centric suppliers expanding their delivery footprint, and domestic/regional suppliers that have roots in the emerging market. A handful of suppliers in this new category have acquired meaningful operating scale and, through investments in delivery capabilities and adopting industry best practices, successfully serve Global 1000 corporations,” the report says.

Renault Outsources To Capgemini

2009-12-08T12:57:00.001+05:30

Renault will outsource application management to Capgemini under a three-year deal that sees Capgemini become one of the French automaker's preferred outsourcing vendors.

Capgemini, of Paris, will work to manage and optimize one quarter of Renault Group's application portfolio, the outsourcer said.

More than 180 Capgemini professionals will be tasked with the effort, which includes technical and functional updates, technical support, and applications development for Renault's procurement, quality, and sales units.

Renault officials said Capgemini's familiarity with the automotive industry factored into their decision to hire the company. Additionally, Capgemini's Sogeti subsidiary has worked previously with Renault.

"To meet the constantly evolving needs of users, a good knowledge of their industry is essential," said Renault deputy CIO Francois Gitton, in a statement.

"This enables good alignment between the service provided, current projects and priorities. Capgemini has the functional and industry capabilities required, as well as a great capacity for innovation drawn from its experience with other car manufacturers," said Gitton.

"These factors create favorable conditions to meet the needs of Renault," he said.

For their part, Capgemini officials said the deal is a chance to forge deeper ties with France's largest automaker.

"This contract is a great opportunity to build a strong partnership with Renault. Our commitment can be seen in both the length of the project and in our ambition to assist the group in its future challenges," said Alain Donzeaud, a member of the Capgemini Group's executive committee.

Capgemini shares were up .10% in Monday trading on the Euronext Paris exchange.

Infosys Employee Ridiculed For Celebrating Christmas and Thanksgiving

2009-12-07T21:08:00.000+05:30

There is a school of thought that maintains that non-Western peoples are simply not capable of sustaining—or assimilating to—the civilization of the West, that “East is East and West is West,” as Kipling put it, and never the twain shall meet.
Sam Francis, 2002

Francis correctly portrayed Kipling’s realism about multiculturalism but nobody can say that Promila Awasthi, an India-born American citizen, didn’t try to beat the odds to assimilate into our culture. Awatshi wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas but was hassled by her bosses at the Indian owned bodyshop Infosys. Awashti’s bosses at the Freemont, California branch of Infosys were Indian nationals who routinely ridiculed her and her family for wanting to take part in those great American traditions.

The NBC Bay Area website gave the following account of the story:

Infosys management routinely disparaged Americans, including Mrs. Awasthi, as not having “family values,” and stated that layoffs in America are good because the jobs will be outsourced.

Infosys management ridiculed Mrs. Awasthi for celebrating the American holiday of Thanksgiving, telling her that she should not celebrate Thanksgiving because she is Indian, and that therefore she must work on Thanksgiving Day.

Infosys management ridiculed Mrs. Awasthi’s children for celebrating Thanksgiving, and called them “ABCD” short for “American-Born Confused Desi,” and “IBCD” short for “Indian-Born Confused Desi,” insulting terms used to criticize people of Indian ancestry who are Americanized.

Infosys management ridiculed Mrs. Awasthi for celebrating Christmas, saying that “we” do not celebrate Christmas, and that she should not celebrate Christmas. Infosys management repeatedly discussed the quality of Mrs. Awasthi’s work by explicitly commenting on their expectations for “a woman your age.”

The India Herald revealed more details of the story:

The complaint alleges that while working at Infosys, Mrs. Awasthi was routinely harassed by Infosys management, nationals of India, on the basis of her being an American of Indian ancestry and national origin, and on the basis of her age and gender. For example, the complaint alleges that:

· Infosys management ridiculed Mrs. Awasthi for celebrating Thanksgiving, telling her that she should not celebrate Thanksgiving because she is Indian, and that therefore she must work on Thanksgiving Day.

· Infosys management ridiculed Mrs. Awasthi’s children for celebrating Thanksgiving, and called them “ABCD,” short for “American-Born Confused Desi,” and “IBCD,” short for “Indian-Born Confused Desi,” insulting terms used to criticize people of Indian ancestry who are Americanized.

Awasthi is fighting for her right to be a fully assimilated American — and to get paid overtime if she is forced to work on those holidays, as required by California state law. On Novermber 23 Awasthi filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court against Infosys.

Infosys, Cognizant and UST Global amongst those shortlisted by Wal-mart

2009-12-06T16:13:00.000+05:30

MUMBAI, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), the world's largest retailer, has picked three IT vendors including India's Infosys Technologies (INFY.BO) for multi-year contracts worth over $600 million, the Business Standard said.

The other vendors are Cognizant Solutions (CTSH.O) and UST Global, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified source close to the development.

Initially the three vendors are expected to earn 2.5 billion to 3 billion rupees ($54 million-$65 million) each annually, which will rise as Wal-Mart increases outsourcing more work.

Infosys and Cognizant, which will provide application development and support, are expected to get a larger share of the contract, the paper said.

UST will be responsible for testing these applications, it said.

"What is more important is that these three vendors have now got a ticket to be in the club of Wal-Mart's list of preferred vendors which will help them in growing this account in the long run," the paper quoted the source as saying.

"We do not comment on market speculation," a spokeswoman for Infosys told Reuters.

Wal-Mart's media relations director, John Simley, said in am emailed reply to the paper: "We have a large and growing business and productive relationship with many Indian companies. We do not comment on speculations about the nature of any business relationship."

Mahindra Satyam won a outsourcing contract from Airbus

2009-12-05T17:34:00.000+05:30

BANGALORE: Mahindra Satyam has won a Rs 100-crore ($20 million) outsourcing contract from the world's largest maker of commerical aircraft,Airbus, to manage its internal quality and processes.

Sources said the three-year contract involving technology maintenance, will put Satyam at a vantage point as they can now have an overview of the projects and technology which controls the organisation.

"The work outsourced mainly includes quality management of work flow and tells how you need to do your work" said a person familiar with the matter.

An email query to Mahindra Satyam and Airbus remained unanswered at the time of this report going to press. This is the second important contract Mahindra Satyam has bagged in the last few months. It had won an IT outsourcing contract last month from Swedish defence and aerospace firm, Saab, to develop its operations for the global defence and security market in India in a deal valued at around $300 million.

The five-year contract, includes providing tech support for engineering services and maintenance. This will enable both the companies jointly address the Battlefield Management System (BMS) for the Indian Army.

Mahindra Satyam said it has initiated the task of setting up a centre of excellence for network centric warfare (CoE NCW). The centre will be used for mission critical applications such as command, control, communications, computers, intelligence solutions and homeland security.

Experts like Chethan Kambi, senior research analyst for aerospace and defence practices at Frost & Sullivan, says that projects like the one outsourced by Airbus includes a gamut of IT operations ranging from human resources management, exchange of work to even sending emails.

"Aircraft makers have to exchange information across their multiple offices across the world through highly-effective IT networks", he said.

Experts said such kind of work also deals with testing and development of software, which ultimately goes on the aircraft. "This kind of work outsourced to Indian IT companies brings 15-18% efficiency", an expert said.

Mahindra Satyam counts Cisco, Nissan, GE, Citigroup and GlaxoSmithKline, as its top five clients. Over the last four months, the company gained 32 new customers.

Infosys to Nearly Double Work Force in U.S. Market

2009-12-03T11:29:00.001+05:30

BANGALORE, India—Infosys Technologies Ltd. plans to nearly double its work force in the U.S. and remains on the lookout for acquisition targets in Germany, France and Japan, its chief executive said.

India's second-largest software exporter by revenue after Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. is planning to hire 1,000 employees in the U.S., Chief Executive S. Gopalakrishnan said in an interview.

The company, which had 1,200 U.S. employees as of March 31, had said in April it would hire more staff there. As of Sept. 30, it had a total of 105,453 employees.

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Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Infosys CEO S. Gopalakrishnan, pictured in April, said the company plans to increase its work force in the U.S.

Infosys gets about 66% of its revenue from the U.S. market. The company joins other Indian software exporters in gradually stepping up hiring to prepare for an expected increase in outsourcing deals as technology spending makes a modest comeback in developed nations.

The company has been trying to reduce its U.S. exposure by increasing its operations in Europe and Asia, which account for about 23% and 10% of its revenue, respectively.

"Ordinarily we look at a company of 10% of our size" for acquisition, Mr. Gopalakrishnan said, adding that a prospective target would have $300 million to $500 million in annual revenue.

He didn't provide details on the business segments it is targeting for acquisitions. Mr. Gopalakrishnan had previously said the company was looking to acquire firms offering services to the health care and utilities sectors to boost its consulting and outsourcing businesses.

Mr. Gopalakrishnan said Infosys's revenue growth in the next fiscal year, starting April 1, will be driven by new outsourcing contracts. But for this fiscal year, "we are looking at almost zero-percent growth," he added.

In October, the company had forecast $4.60 billion to $4.62 billion of revenue for the current fiscal year, down 1% to 1.3% from a year earlier.

Top offshorers seek on-demand apps

2009-12-03T10:22:00.001+05:30

BANGALORE: Top outsourcing customers, such as Nokia Siemens Networks, Royal Philips Electronics and ABB are askin g service providers, including

Wipro, Infosys and IBM, to deliver complex business applications as an on-demand service in order to bring down their capital expenditure on information technology by up to 40%.

By asking vendors to manage, host and deliver a software application, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), these customers are able to avoid large, complex outsourcing contracts and instead pay suppliers on the basis of number of transactions.

Popular business application packages, including customer relationship management (CRM) and ERP, are increasingly being adopted under software-as-a-service (SaaS) model by the customers. According to research firm Gartner, SaaS-based CRM was worth $1.8 billion in revenues, almost 18% of $9.4-billion global market for CRM software.

For Indian IT firms, such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL, this offers a new opportunity to enhance proximity with the customers and also move away from traditional model of outsourcing, wherein they had dedicated offshore development centres for each customer.

“By offering services under our Flex model, we are able to bring down costs by up to 30%,” said Sangita Singh, senior vice-president and head of Wipro’s enterprise application services business. Wipro’s FlexDelivery model offers ERP software from SAP to customers such as Nokia Siemens.

At least two outsourcing consultants told ET on conditions of anonymity that around 10-12 ERP and CRM outsourcing contracts, each worth $50-100 million, are being discussed by customers, including steel maker ArcelorMittal, Philips and ABB.

“We, currently, have around 15% of application revenues coming from the Flex model, it can surely contribute around half of our total enterprise applications business,” she added. Wipro is moving some of its top customers who already have dedicated offshore centres to this model. Mr Singh declined to name the customers currently exploring this model.

Indeed, as more customers seek to reduce cost and move away from traditional time and material-based pricing models, Indian vendors will have to prepare for more such engagements. Delivering traditional application maintenance and services in its current form will not really take Indian tech firms too far, experts say.

India’s second-biggest software exporter Infosys is not far behind. The company is already offering Oracle’s PeopleSoft HR management software to two of its customers. “By saving software and hardware costs and with our reusable components, the total cost of ownership can be brought down by 25-30%,” said Ravi Kumar S, Infosys’ vice-president and delivery head for Oracle services.

The country’s biggest software exporter TCS currently offers enterprise services under SaaS model to around 60 small and medium business customers.

“This downturn will force vendors and customers to explore newer models, going forward, we will look at many applications to be delivered under SaaS model,” Maarten J de Vries, IT and supply management, member group management committee, Royal Philips Electronics told ET in a recent interview.

For instance, European service providers, such as T-Systems, with capabilities to bundle enterprise business applications from SAP are already

winning more business. Wipro, along with EDS and T-Systems is among SAP services providers currently authorised to deliver such services as part of the Run SAP program.

“During the downturn, this model offers a quick and easy way to save costs, and having noticed that customers were moving towards platform-based services, we realised Run SAP could be a good way to help customers standardise their processes using SAP applications,” said Anja-Christina Bruehling, head of partner management — Active Global Support , SAP. “Apart from selecting a partner, customers are also free to operate RunSAP inhouse,” she added.

Philips will announce a new outsourcing contract with T-Systems, a European service provider, this week, Mr Vries said. “We will also announce SAP as a service as part of this contract,” he added.

Top honchos named in cases against Satyam

2009-12-03T09:54:00.001+05:30

HYDERABAD: The former Cabinet Secretary T.R. Prasad, the former Director of IIT-Delhi and Madras, V.S. Raju, and the former Dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB) M. Rammohan Rao, have been named by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) for the first time in the Rs. 11,000-crore fraud in Satyam Computers.

They are among 11 ex-directors and other top managers of the company against whom the SFIO, an arm of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, has filed seven cases in the special court for economic offences here, under various provisions of the Companies Act, 1956. The court summoned all 11 persons accused in these cases to appear before it on December 11.

The other accused include Vinod K. Dham, known as the father of Pentium; Krishna G. Palepu, a professor of the Harvard Business School; and Mangalam Srinivasan, a U.S.-based academician. All of them were independent directors until they resigned from the board when the fraud came to light.

The former company chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju, and two other ex-bosses, B. Rama Raju and Srinivas Vadlamani, who are in jail facing police cases, were also shown as accused.

Two top mangers who were not brought to book by the police but have now been named by the SFIO are Ram Mynampati and G. Jayaraman. While the former was considered the right hand man of Ramalinga Raju with control over 60 per cent of the company’s business, Jayaraman was the company secretary.

The SFIO filed the case against Ram Mynampati showing him as a resident of the U.S., where he ‘fled’ before the police could lay hold on him. The agency accused him of receiving remuneration much in excess of the payout due to him. The company accounts for 2007-08 showed that Mynampati’s salary package was Rs. 3.5 crore, while all other directors together got only Rs. 2.6 crore in the whole year. Ramalinga Raju collected Rs. 60.4 lakh and the seven non-executive directors Rs. 1.56 crore.

The prosecutors told The-Hindu that the cases were filed against them on various charges, including exaggeration of balance sheets and showing as paid unpaid dividends.

Meanwhile, the Directorate of Enforcement has attached another chunk of immovable properties, mainly agricultural lands, belonging to Ramalinga Raju and his family members, with the adjudicating authority in New Delhi under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The purchase consideration of the 25 properties was shown as Rs. 20 crore.

The first chunk of 287 properties with a purchase consideration of Rs. 170 crore and 34 lakh Satyam shares were attached in August.

Wipro to hire 5,000, revamp recruitment strategy

2009-12-02T19:42:00.001+05:30

Wipro Technologies said on Wednesday it will hire 5,000 people in the next couple of months and is looking at a fresh recruitment strategy of taking in graduates from non-engineering institutes.

"Our strategy is to recruit non-engineering graduates, in addition to engineering and make them fit into the slot. We are still working out the details," Wipro Technologies joint CEO Girish Paranjpe said.

Refusing to divulge more details for next year's recruitments and outlook, Paranjpe said it would be a mix of 60 per cent freshers and 40 per cent experienced.

About 5,000 will be taken into the company in a month or two, he said. Last year the company made offers to as many as 8,500 persons through recruitment drives in colleges and institutions.

"We expect clients to make no further cuts in their budgets. We expect 2010 to be a better year than 2009," Paranjpe told reporters in Hyderabad on the sidelines of dedicating renovated Manikonda Lake at Hyderabad facility to the community.

He said the new hiring strategies will be worked out in a month or two. Attrition rate in the company stood at 10 per cent.

On becoming energy efficient, he said the company is determined to reduce the carbon emission per employee by 45 per cent from the present 3.96 tonnes to 2.5 tonnes in the next five years.

"Our power consumption went down by 12 per cent last year and we are planning to set up a micro windmill at our Hyderabad facility soon," Paranjpe said.

The company consumes nearly 75 megawatt power from both Government and internal sources.

He said the company's exposure in the Gulf market is around 4 per cent and the Dubai financial crisis will have no impact.

IBM Stays Tops as Server Market Stabilizes, Gartner Says

2009-12-01T09:44:00.001+05:30

IBM retained its narrow lead over Hewlett-Packard in the worldwide server market as sales began to stabilize during the third quarter, Gartner said Monday.

IBM took 31.7 percent of server revenue in the three months to Oct. 31, up a fraction from last year, while HP's share stayed more or less flat at 30.2 percent, Gartner said. They were followed at a distance by Dell, Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu.

Server revenue overall dropped 15.5 percent from the third quarter last year, to $10.7 billion. But it was up by 10.2 percent compared to the second quarter this year, Gartner said.

"It is important to put the yearly declines into perspective," Gartner Research Vice President Jeffrey Hewitt said in a statement. The server market is "showing signs of stabilization as we move toward the end of 2009."

All the top vendors bar one saw their server revenue improve from the second quarter. The exception was Sun Microsystems, whose business has been hit by uncertainty surrounding its acquisition by Oracle.

Sun's server revenue was down 32.3 percent from the third quarter last year, much more than its main rivals, according to Gartner. It remained the top seller of Unix systems by volume, but its lead was pared down from a year earlier as shipments declined by almost half.

In terms of dollars spent, HP overtook Sun to become the second-largest Unix vendor behind IBM. HP grew its share of Unix systems revenue from 28 percent to 29.3 percent, while Sun's declined from 29.2 percent to 24.2 percent, Gartner said. IBM's share increased from 36.4 percent to 40.9 percent.

The Unix server market overall was worth $2.6 billion, a drop of 21.2 percent from the third quarter last year.

Industry-standard servers fared a little better. Sales of x86-based systems declined by 11.4 percent from last year, to $6.3 billion. HP retained its dominant lead, followed by Dell, IBM, Fujitsu and NEC.

IT majors worried about cascading effect of Dubai crisis

2009-11-30T10:25:00.003+05:30

MUMBAI/BANGALORE: As Dubai World, the emirate’s investment firm seeks more time to repay almost $60-billion debt, India’s top tech firms fear
that the once lucrative West Asia market for outsourcing can enter a prolonged recession and customers in other top export markets of the US and Europe may exercise more caution while making outsourcing decisions.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys Technologies, Wipro, HCL and Patni Computer Systems are among Indian tech firms serving telecom, banking and other customers in the West Asia region. Dubai, the biggest commercial hub in the region saw home prices plunge by nearly half from 2008 levels, reflecting the worst real estate slump during the global recession, according to Deutsche BankAG.

“Global confidence is coming back. We were hoping for more spends. But now the confidence of our customers is shaking. I expect they are going to be a bit more cautious about spends and will not open up so much. Budgets were getting firmed up in December—clients will now relook at the whole thing,” said a senior software executive with one of the firms that was looking at the West Asia and Africa as a growth markets. Publicly, though, few firms are willing to admit to these worries.

While Wipro counts Qatar Petroleum and Road and Transport Authority of Dubai among its top customers, TCS serves Saudi Telecom. Domestic rivals Mahindra Satyam also counts Dubai Municipality and National Bank of Dubai among its key customers in the region.
Wipro’s Anand Sankaran said the crisis was not entirely unanticipated as reports of people in Dubai abandoning their cars in airports because of the economic slowdown have been around for 9-12 months. “To mitigate this risk, we started looking outside Dubai,” he said. Wipro’s IT business in the West Asia is around $80 million and its Dubai business is 15-20% of it.

Apart from exposure to Dubai, the impact on companies could be lower IT spends from West Asia, which was perceived to be a growth market. Tech Mahindra had announced several wins from the West Asia and multinationals like CapGemini had appointed a partner-level executive to open up the market, as opposed to handling it from its UK office earlier.
But possibly more worrying are Dubai’s linkages to the financial world. “Dubai has a lot of financial connections and there could be a
ripple value on the dollar. Any imbalances in the economy could have potential impact on the stability of the dollar and IT spending as well. Further, it is a negative sentiment for the financial sector,” said Ganesh Natarajan, former Nasscom chairman and CEO Zensar Technologies.

“West Asia accounts for mere 1-1.5% of exposure for Indian IT. So the revenue risk is only to that extent. However, the indirect impact could be more severe. Because European and US banks have direct exposure to West Asia, increasing default risk will turn this industry to be conservative in allocating capital and in their spendings, including IT spending,” said Alok Shende, principal analyst, Ascentius Consulting.

“US banks had recently started coming out to of their hibernation, and since US and European banking industry have a significant pie of Indian outsourcing industry, the risk aversion could slowdown the pace of outsourcing,” Mr Shende added. Mastek CMD Sudhakar Ram, however, said the impact was only a second or third order impact, it would not be very major. “As it is, companies were spending only on keeping the lights on. So they cannot cut back on that,” he said. But if indeed customers continue to spend only on keeping the lights on (or in other words, only absolutely necessary spends), then the much-awaited recovery that IT firms were anticipating may be delayed yet some more.

TCS to hire about 25,000 in 2010-11

2009-11-28T14:24:00.002+05:30

Indicating a revival of business opportunities, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has said that it will recruit about 25,000 people in 2010-11.

In 2009-10, the company has absorbed 1,500 in the second quarter and would add 8,000 more this quarter.

The IT major has said that it would send appointment letters to the remaining 15,385 candidates in the last quarter of the financial year.

At present, the company, which employs 1.41 lakh people, registered an attrition rate of 11.50 per cent for 12 months.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Mr Ajoy Mukherjee, Head (Global HR) of TCS, said if the number were as big as 24,885 the company had planned to induct this year, it would not be far away from that target.

Mr Ajoy Mukherjee was here in connection with Sangam, the company's annual interface with the industry and academic institutes.

“We are finalising the business plan for the next year. We are going to campuses as the students enter their eighth semester,” he said.

Mr N Chandrasekaran, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, has announced that it would fund 200 PhD students in computer science research, 40 each in the next five years, at various institutes.

“At a time when new technologies are changing business models rapidly, there is an urgent need for more focussed research to stay ahead of the learning curve. The TCS Research Scholars programme will help enlarge the research and development agenda,” he said.

Plan for verticals

Though the company had significant presence in several verticals, the company had decided to accelerate pace of growth in some other verticals in which it was having relatively smaller presence. “We are going to increase focus on pharma, aerospace, retail and utilities,” he added.

He said the company would continue to focus on the emerging markets such as Latin America, India and Asia Pacific and Caribbean.

Official: IBM US headcount down to 105,000. Down by 10,000 in 1 year

2009-11-28T09:57:00.002+05:30

IBM's United States work force has been in decline for years, but it has recently shrunk more quickly.

News that IBM's American jobs were down to 105,000 came in a presentation to a congressional subcommittee by Maria Ferris, IBM's director of diversity, compliance and employee experience.

That means a decrease of 10,000 IBMers since the end of 2008, when it was 115,000.

Ferris' remarks were reported Nov. 16 as part of a pitch to relax some Fair Labor Standards Act provisions, which she said would increase workplace and time flexibility.

IBM has been cutting costs and raising profits. One way is "work force rebalancing," which involves shifting work around, often overseas, and U.S. downsizing.

"We've been saying that the offshoring of U.S. jobs would bring the IBM employee population down significantly, and I think we're seeing that now," said Lee Conrad, national organizer for Alliance@IBM, a workers' group based in Johnson City.

The Hudson Valley got a dose of downsizing this year. At IBM's East Fishkill plant, 340 jobs were cut, according to IBM documents filed with the state Department of Labor.

IBM cut about 100 to 120 jobs at its Endicott plant this year, Conrad has said, citing information from local employees.

Before the reporting act was toughened, other jobs at IBM plants were cut, however the company won't say how many.

No IBM spokesman in a position to comment could be reached. IBM has previously said it remains a major U.S. high-tech employer.

At the end of 2008, IBM had 398,455 employees globally, with the U.S. portion forming 28.9 percent of that.

Pai denies ‘turf war' at Infosys

2009-11-27T18:45:00.002+05:30

BANGALORE: The news of two Infosys top executives leaving the company due to various reasons, has given air to the rumor that a turf war is brewing in the top echelons of the IT behemoth, however, top brass of the company categorically denied any such thing.

Recently, a citizen journalist website, citing sources claimed that there was a “bitter turf war” within the company which puts Infosys at a risk of “losing some of the most respected executives in India.” “There existed two extremely strong factions within Infosys - Nandan Nilekani and Mohandas Pai…A united face to the world, the continuous tension between the two head honchos was a well kept secret restricted to the inner circle.

Those in Nandan’s faction (read Amitabh Chaudhary) are slowly being edged out of the inner circle after Nandan left the top post.

Latest to hit the bandwagon are Rishi Jain (AVP and Head of Corporate Planning at Infosys BPO) and Purnima Menon (Head - Marketing for Infosys BPO),” the website said.

Infosys HR Head, Mohandas Pai told Express, “There is no such turf war. Joydeep is leaving but he had put in his papers three months ago for personal reasons and we would be finalizing his successor shortly.” “Rishi and purnima have not resigned!” he added.

The resignation of Joydeep, who heads the Knowledge Process Outsourcing business of the company, was reported by news papers on Thursday.

Knowledge services contribute about 10 per cent of Infosys BPO’s annual revenue of over Rs 1,450 crore. Joydeep took over from Ramit Sethi, who quit last year to head the KPO practice at Wipro.

Amitabh Chaudhry, who took over as the Chief Executive of Infosys BPO in March 2006, had reportedly submitted his resignation on Tuesday.

The BPO arm of Infosys employs about 16,000 staff and offers finance and accounting, human resource and legal services outsourcing.

Chaudhry who is tipped to join HDFC Standard Life Insurance to head its business in India as CEO could not be contacted and HDFC Standard Life Insurance spokesperson declined to comment.

Satyam to Hire 1,000 College Graduates by Mid-December

2009-11-27T14:51:00.001+05:30

MUMBAI -- India's Satyam Computer Services Ltd., now operating under the Mahindra Satyam brand, will recruit around 1,000 college graduates by mid-December, a senior company executive said Friday.

"The need to hire some entry-level people is being felt because of attrition and to prepare for the future," Hari T, chief people officer, told Dow Jones Newswires.

Fraud-hit Satyam was acquired by Tech Mahindra Ltd. in April via a government-led auction after Satyam's founder and then chairman confessed in January to cooking the company's books.

These recruits will be among the 7,000 who received offers from Satyam before the scam came to light, Mr. Hari said.

Satyam was doubly hit by the global economic meltdown as clients canceled projects and sought price cuts as they faced pressure on profits.

In a bid to cut costs, Mahindra Satyam also cut salaries and placed staff who were not working on billable projects on forced leave.

However, the company is now recovering from the fraud and the impact of the global meltdown.

Mr. Hari said the company has already recalled about 1,500 people from the original 8,000 placed on forced leave.

Zurich and CSC in $2.9bn deal

2009-11-27T10:10:00.001+05:30

Computer Sciences Corp (CSC) has signed a $2.9bn (£1.76bn), 10-and-a-half year master service agreement with Zurich Financial Services Group (Zurich) for IT services in Europe and North America. The deal is expected to pave the way for country specific agreements later. Under the contract, CSC will centralise Zurich’s data centre and virtualise its servers and up to 1,000 Zurich employees will potentially transfer to CSC during the first half of 2010. The relationship between Zurich and CSC began in July 2004 when the companies signed a seven-year, $1.3bn contract.

Forbes names Satyam's Raju as world's 4th most outrageous CEO

2009-11-26T19:43:00.000+05:30

It's one Forbes list where none would want to figure, but Ramalinga Raju, the founder-chairman Satyam Computers (now Mahindra Satyam), has managed the feat of being among the world's 10 most outrageous CEOs.

Raju has been ranked as the world's fourth most outrageous CEO in 2009 on the list compiled by the Forbes, known for its rankings of the richest and the most powerful the world over.

Giving Raju company are Sri Lankan-origin American hedge fund manager Raj Rajarathnam (third), former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain (2nd) and Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein (1st).

Raju, the only Indian on the list dominated by Americans, owes his place on the list to his disclosure in January about committing the country's biggest ever corporate fraud.

"In January, B Ramalinga Raju, the founder of Satyam Computer Services, confessed to overstating its profits over several years and creating a fictitious cash balance of more than $ billion.

"He confessed to inventing more than 10,000 fictional employees to help him steal money from the company, and using his mother's name to buy land with the proceeds. The police arrested Raju, his co-founder and brother, B Rama Raju, and former CFO Srinivas Vadlamani on charges of cheating, forgery and breach of trust.

"Despite Raju's confession, he has yet to face charges in court," Forbes said, adding the investigators have now found
the fraud to be "much worse than expected after they discovered another $ 1.25 billion beyond what was already
known."

Raju on this list is followed by American businessman Thomas Petters (5th), who went on trial in October for
allegedly orchestrating a $3.5-billion fraud.

The magazine said about a year ago Bernard Madoff "raised the bar for corporate malfeasance to an all-time high when he
was arrested on charges of orchestrating a $50-billion Ponzi scheme."

"Obviously, nobody managed to top Madoff's crimes in 2009, but 10 executives showed enough greed, hubris and
chutzpah to altogether give him a run for his (stolen) money," it said about the list.

Those on the list include AIG's former CEO Edward M Liddy, who faced a nationwide firestorm when it emerged that
$165-million in retention bonuses were being paid to the executives, at the sixth position.

At the seventh position is Danny Pang, founder and the then chief executive of Private Equity Management Group, who
was arrested in April on charges of structuring cash transactions so that he wouldn't have to report them to the government.

In April, the SEC of the US accused Pang of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded his investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Pang died in September at age 42, before he could stand trial. A report is expected by January to say
whether he committed suicide.

AIGSS buy, HP ties to keep MphasiS's tempo high

2009-11-26T09:43:00.001+05:30

For MphasiS, 2009 has been the year of resurrection. The IT services company, which was struggling to grow not long ago, reported a sharp 44%

rise in revenue and a two-fold jump in profit after tax (PAT) during the year ended October 2009. And all of this growth has been on the pure organic front without any acquisitions.

With an annual revenue of Rs 4,283.3 crore and a PAT of Rs 908 crore, the erstwhile mid-tier IT company is fast moving into the top league of Indian IT exporters. It now stands sixth in the IT pecking order.

The turnaround in MphasiS’ fortune during the year has been remarkable when compared with the lower double-digit growth reported by some of its bigger peers in a highly uncertain global economic climate. MphasiS’ stellar performance was largely a result of its association with HP.

HP acquired MphasiS’ parent EDS in May 2008.

Since then, MphasiS has seen a higher growth in its key business segments, including application services (a 43% growth in 2009 revenue) and infrastructure technology outsourcing (ITO) business (an 85% jump). Both these divisions constitute over 90% of total revenue, with the rest coming from BPO operations.

With the HP’s entry, MphasiS has seen a slew of deals coming its way. In the October 2009 quarter, out of 16 new deals that MphasiS bagged, as many as 13 were from the HP channel. Not only has the number of deals increased, but the average size of the deals has also gone up.

MphasiS has also improved efficiency of its operations in terms of employee utilisation and management of its sales outstanding. In the October quarter, employee utilisation reached 82%, including trainees, because the company decided not to recruit new employees except for adding 700 employees of AIGSS, the software division of AIG, which it acquired in August 2009.

It now takes 72 days on average to collect receivables, 11 days fewer than the year ago. Despite its impressive performance, MphasiS’ stock fell by 4% to Rs 668.5 on Wednesday.

Analysts from Emkay Global Financial Services and Kotak Institutional Equities Research feel that much of the future upside in MphasiS’ business has already been captured in its current price-earnings multiple of over 16.

The full impact of AIGSS’ acquisition would be visible in the next quarter. This, coupled with the thrust from HP’s channel, is expected to keep the tempo high for MphasiS in the coming quarters.

250,000 IT jobs up for grabs soon: Infy director

2009-11-25T17:54:00.000+05:30

With the global economy gradually bouncing back, the IT job market is also picking up and around 2-2.5-lakh jobs in the sector are likely to be up for grabs, a top Infosys [ Get Quote ] official said on Wednesday.

"The job scenario is improving...this year the market is likely to see around 2-2.5-lakh jobs," Infosys director-human resources Mohandas Pai told reporters.

The IT jobs market will, however, not be the same as it was two years ago but will also not be as bad as it was last year, Pai said, adding the fresher-lateral hiring ratio is likely to be around 65:35 per cent this year.

Two years ago there were around 3-4 lakh jobs available in the IT market, he pointed out. The industry has witnessed a lower growth rate in the last 18-months, Pai said, adding that the market is not so open now.

Infosys has plans to hire around 20,000, Pai said, adding that, however, campus recruitments will be lower this year as compared to the last.

"This year, Infosys will be hiring around 20,000 as against 16,000 that we recruited last year. Campus recruitments, however, will be less," Pai said. However, did not divulge the exact number that he is planning to hire through campus recruitments.

Pai said that Infosys has given a 7-8 per cent hike across the board whereas globally it was two per cent. Attrition stood at 10 per cent at Infosys, he said.

Infosys to drive out of auto engg biz, focus on aerospace projects

2009-11-25T08:40:00.001+05:30

MUMBAI: India’s second-biggest software exporter Infosys Technologies plans to stay away from top auto customers in its engineering services business and shift its focus from commoditised and price-sensitive projects.

Engineering requires a mix of programming and core engineering skills such as mechanical or civil, depending on the industry being serviced, and is billed at higher rates than traditional application development and maintenance projects.

“We have chosen to walk away from this (auto) industry because the work has become increasingly commoditised because of high competition. We are a premium services player and our contribution is value-driven,” said Valmeeka Nathan, vice-president and head of product lifecycle and engineering, Infosys. He said the company had chosen to de-risk revenues from this segment and instead focus on segments such as aerospace, which provides stability and visibility of revenues.

Some of the other focus areas for the company in engineering services will be sectors such as heavy engineering, hi-tech, energy generation, medical and apparel. Mr Nathan said aerospace contributed about 40% to the company’s engineering services revenues, with the remaining 60% coming from other sectors. “The contribution of the auto (sector) to our (engineering) revenues is minor. We do take on projects from auto clients but selectively,” he added.

“The nature of engineering services is different from software services, and requires a fairly different talent pool. Vendors have their own niche because it requires a fair amount of competency. It also doesn’t offer the same kind of scalability as the rest of the software business,” said Sandeep Muthangi, analyst with IIFL. “Even outside of engineering services, Infosys does not have much exposure to the auto sector,” said an analyst with a foreign brokerage.

With auto majors, General Motors (GM) and Chrysler, slipping into bankruptcy, the auto sector has been a trouble spot for IT vendors such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro that service them. Revenues from the auto industry have declined and analysts said they could not comment on the current contribution of GM or Chrysler to the revenues of the IT majors.

However, on the sidelines of the recent Nasscom Global Engineering Leadership Summit, Regu Ayyaswamy, VP (engineering and industrial services), TCS, said that the company was seeing ‘some sporadic signs of growth’ from the auto industry.

Engineering services is expected to clock to $7 billion in software export revenues this year with over 50% of it coming from the semiconductor and telecom industry. However, by 2020 when engineering services revenues are expected to touch $40 billion - $50 billion, the auto sector is expected to hold its own along with sectors such as consumer electronics and aerospace.

HCL Tech enters strategic partnership with Savvion

2009-11-24T21:32:00.001+05:30

MUMBAI: Global IT services provider, HCL Technologies Limited (HCL), announced a strategic partnership with Savvion to extend its services in the Business Process Management (BPM) space.

With this, both HCL and Savvion would be able to help customers implement and optimise business processes across the organisation, a press release issued here stated.

The BPM solutions enable visibility into extremely critical business processes such as order management, onboarding new clients and releasing and supporting products with an ability to track and measure these processes real-time.

"With this partnership with Savvion, we wish to expand our services across verticals with focus on financial services, media, publishing and entertainment, Government and retail," HCL's Vice-President (Corporate) and Enterprise Application and Transformation Services (Head), Ramakrishna V, said.

HCL Tech says wins $200 mn outsourcing order

2009-11-23T20:44:00.000+05:30

NEW DELHI: Software services firm HCL Technologies on Monday said it has won a contract worth $200 million from British insurer Equitable Life
Assurance Society.

The contract begins in March 2011, HCL said in a statement.

Satyam’s internal auditor arrested

2009-11-22T21:10:00.000+05:30

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today arrested the internal auditor of former Satyam Computer Services Limited V S Prabhakar Rao. Rao was under investigation for his role in assisting the Raju brothers in cooking up the balance sheets and forging bank statements. A CBI official said that though Rao’s role was suspected since the beginning, they could not establish a link till now. “We have arrested him today. We have adequate proof to link him with the entire scam,” the official said. Rao was also a key aide of Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju and is learnt to be the brain behind suggesting how to fudge the account statements. Rao was produced before the Nampally court which remanded him to four days in CBI custody.

Meanwhile, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has announced its decision to issue separate notices to six auditors found “prime facie guilty of professional misconduct” in the Satyam Computer Services case.

These notices are being served on four auditors belonging to the statutory audit team of PriceWaterhouse, Bangalore — S Gopalakrishnan, Srinivas Talluri, Shiva Prasad and Ch Ravindranath. Besides that, notices are also being issued to V Srinivasu, chief finance officer of the company, and V S Prabhakar Gupta, head of the internal audit cell of the company. Notices will also be issued to the New Delhi and Kolkata offices of PriceWaterhouse. These notices are being issued based on the report of Director (Discipline) of the ICAI into the role of external and internal auditors in the commission of the financial regularities in Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

Tech companies find it difficult to crack deals in US, Europe

2009-11-20T11:08:00.002+05:30

BANGALORE: For India’s top tech firms seeking to take an inorganic growth route for expanding in the US and European markets, successful

acquisitions are becoming harder to come by, as potential targets demand high valuations and cultural barriers in several countries act as a bottleneck.

Over the past two years, tech firms including Wipro, Infosys, Patni and several others have had discussions with potential targets such as Globant of Argentina, Ciber in the US and IDS Scheer of Germany. While IDS Scheer was acquired by Software AG earlier this year, both Globant and Ciber decided to discontinue their dialogues with potential acquirers.

“It is not a surprise to me that we are an acquisition target as we do have a very unique model which makes us attractive, but also it is very difficult to acquire,” said Tony Hadzi, executive vice- president & president (custom solutions division) of Ciber. “However, we do not want to be acquired and not aiming to be acquired. We have solicitations, but we just turned them down.”

With around $1.2 billion in revenues, and customers such as American Express, AT&T, General Motors and Abott Laboratories, Ciber makes a very lucrative acquisition target for an Indian company seeking to establish a stronger US footprint.

“We did explore Ciber, but valuations apart from other issues did not help our efforts,” said an executive at an Indian tech firm involved with M&A initiatives. He requested anonymity because he is not authorised to discuss such transactions with media.

Meanwhile, smaller service providers in countries of Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, such as Globant, which counts Adidas, LinkedIn and Citi among its top customer, have also been approached by several Indian tech firms, including Patni. But, the dialogues could not conclude.

Globant, with around $100 million in revenues, can help an Indian tech firm gain near shore advantage and serve top US customers better. “We wanted to explore M&A opportunities with Globant, but the valuation being demanded was almost $400-500 million at $4,100 million revenues. We were not ready for a transaction at such premium,” said a senior executive at one of the tech firms, which had evaluated Globant for a potential acquisition.

In Germany, where Infosys, Wipro and several other Indian tech firms are pursuing acquisition targets, the companies are wary about offshoring of jobs. Experts such as Peter Schumacher of European strategy consulting firm Value Leadership say acquisitions are an emotional issue in Europe, which many Indian tech firm are not realising.

“European companies and employees are concerned that Indian companies will fire employees in Europe and shift work offshore,” he said. Citing an example he said NIIT’s acquisition of German services firm AD Solutions in 2002 provides some learning for Indian tech firms. “While they started with much enthusiasm, they failed to acquire any offshoring business during the following 12 months period. They also ran into significant integration problems, which they had completely underestimated,” Mr Schumacher added.

Within just 15 months the German unit saw its headcount drop 26% at significant cost. “With proper preparation, NIIT should have anticipated most of these problems prior to the acquisition,” he added.

Sony Ericsson to cut 2,000 jobs globally

2009-11-19T22:52:00.000+05:30

Mobile handset maker Sony Ericsson today said it will cut 2,000 jobs globally as it phases out activities at some of its locations.

"As part of its programme that started a year ago, Sony Ericsson will phase out activities at some of its locations worldwide and plans to reduce headcount globally by 2,000 people," Sony Ericsson said in a statement.When asked if the move will impact the Indian operations as well, company officials declined to provide details when contacted.

Sony Ericsson intends to complete its programme by mid-2010, it added.

The company will phase out activities at some of its locations worldwide, as part of a cost reduction programme.

It added that the company was continuing with its business transformation programme as announced earlier and the main aim was to return to profitability as soon as possible.

Sony Ericsson intends to complete its programme by mid-2010

2-3 Satyam seniors face arrest

2009-11-19T16:03:00.000+05:30

Hyderabad: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is gearing up for a speedy trial in the multi-crore scam in Satyam Computer Services, now known as Mahindra Satyam.
According to a source, the CBI is making some brisk moves to effect some more arrests in the case.

"There are at least three more people on the radar," the source said, adding these could be company seniors. The CBI has filed a memo in a local court seeking to frame charges against the accused. This will formally commence the trial process and the accused will get to respond to the charges leveled against them.

However, the counsel for the accused objected to the application on the ground that the framing of charges and asking the accused to defend themselves before the supplementary charge-sheet is filed by the CBI would jeopardise the interests of the accused.

Coming soon: IBM tech hubs at Bhopal, Nagpur, Jaipur

2009-11-19T00:05:00.002+05:30

JAIPUR: IT solutions provider IBM is planning to expand its footprints in tier II and tier III cities with a bouquet of hardware, software and

services offerings primarily targeted at mid-market clients.

IBM Growth markets vice president Harish Krishnamurthy told ET that the company is soon going to set up its hubs in potential cities like Raipur, Bhopal, Bhubhaneshwar, Vizag and Nagpur. “These cities have great untapped potential.

By starting our hub in these cities we would be able to cater to the requirements of surrounding tier III cities through our partners under hub and spoke model. The small and medium enterprises offer great business opportunities,” he said.

At present, IBM has a direct presence in 22 cities across the country. The company has also appointed IT players Sequel Infocom and Icon Integrated services as the channel partners to sell IBM’s infrastructure services to clients. “These two partners will focus primarily on Rajasthan market. They will help us in enhancing our reach in the state by offering infrastructure services to clients helping them in areas of Green IT, security, business continuity, improved collaboration and communication among others,” he said.

IBM has also launched first of its kind service offering named IBM Express Remote managed Infrastructure Services (ERMIS) exclusively to be sold by its channel partners. “IBM cannot sell it directly to the clients. It has to be sold through our channel partners. It is designed to enable IBM business partners in providing their clients with remote monitoring, management and service reporting of their IT infrastructure,” said Vivek Malhotra, IBM vice president – North & East, General Business.

Apart from that the company has also launched a cost-efficient Scalable Modular Server Rooms (SMSR), which has been successfully implemented in Shree Cements. “This is also first of its kind in the country. Unlike other conventional servers, which take 6-7 months for installation, this data server takes shipment time of 2-3 weeks and just 3 days of implementation time. Also, it consumes 15-30% less power than other servers. The entry level model comes at a competitive price point of $50,000 which is almost 10% of any conventional server,” Mr. Malhotra said.

Dell-Perot to introduce ‘pay-as-per-use’ model

2009-11-17T20:21:00.001+05:30

NEW DELHI: Dell-perot Systems, which bundles hardware and software solutions for offering low-cost services to hospitals and other healthcare

companies, plans to replicate its American model for gaining more business in India’s $12-billion domestic market.

The company, which is already offering its pay-as-per use service to healthcare customers in the US, signed a 10-year contract with Max Healthcare earlier this year, bidding against domestic rivals TCS and Wipro, for Rs 90 crore.

At a time when the US is preparing to spend almost $46 billion on modernisation of its ageing healthcare systems, and even the Indian government has aggressive IT-enabled programmes, tech firms such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro will have to compete against Dell-Perot and IBM.

“Historically there was a software and a hardware side to an IT service. Today, companies are bundling both service capabilities into one and offering it as an integrated IT solution. It helps in reaching out to the customer faster and reduce overall IT cost,” said Mr Fickenscher.

Cloud computing for hospitals and healthcare service providers is expected to reduce their overall operational and capital expenditure by up to 30-40%. Computing through cloud, or delivery of software business applications through a given network allows customers and users to use a service without owning any hardware infrastructure or software licences.

“We have launched this model in the US and it has been quite successful. It will take some more time to get these services into India, as it requires deployment of appropriate IT systems and training people on the same,” said Mr Fickenscher.

The company is already in talks with several other hospital chains in the country to manage and control their IT infrastructure. Going forward, Dell-Perot will also look at government projects in the heathcare space aggressively.

India is among the four major growth markets for Dell-Perot, the others being China, Europe and the Middle-East. The company feels that there is a huge scope of providing cloud computing services — IT services over internet — largely to physicians in India, as they usually do not have access to data centres.

The company is expected to launch cloud computing services in India, China and the UK over the next 12-18 months and Latin America subsequently.

Experts such as Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst at Gartner said Dell-Perot will be a bigger worry in the overseas markets for Indian tech firms.

“Dell acquired Perot largely to cater to the US market where it was loosing out due to lack of complete product portfolio. Since Indian IT services Infosys, Wipro and TCS focus primarily on the US and European markets, Dell will give a tough competition to them in these markets considering that Perot System is the largest service provider in the healthcare space worldwide,” he said.

Britain’s National Healthcare Services (NHS) programme is another opportunity for Dell-Perot to replicate its cloud computing model.

“BT has an ongoing contract with the government to provide IT services, specifically to around 37 trusts/hospitals. We are a subcontractor to BT in that project. However, the model on which the IT solution will be based is yet to be finalised. BT is having conversation on the same with the government and will finalise it soon.”

Infosys:Clients' Budgets Likely Flat or Slightly Down

2009-11-17T20:03:00.002+05:30

By DEEPALI GUPTA and ANKUR RELIA

MUMBAI -- Infosys Technologies Ltd. expects its clients' information technology budgets in 2010 to be unchanged or marginally lower, its chief operating officer said Tuesday.

"Past patterns suggest that when budgets are under pressure, clients do all kinds of things to get more with less, like outsourcing and offshoring," S.D. Shibulal told reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference.

India's software exporters have been hurt in the past few quarters because of the global economic slowdown, which led their customers to scrap or delay projects and seek lower rates for products and services.

Mr. Shibulal said the company's clients are saying the global economic recovery might be protracted, indicating that they would continue to be cautious on their spending.

However, he said clients have begun making decisions on their IT spending, underscoring optimism that the worst from the global economic crisis was over for the software outsourcing industry.

Mr. Shibulal expects Infosys--India's second-largest software exporter by revenue--to sustain margins in a narrow range, despite the investment it is planning.

"We are not looking to expand them (margins) significantly," Mr. Shibulal said.

In the July-September quarter, the Mumbai and Nasdaq-listed company's operating margin grew to 34.6% from 34.1%, helped by operational efficiencies and a fall in the value of the dollar against European currencies.

Mahindra Satyam ties up with Gen-i, Australasian ICT

2009-11-17T20:02:00.002+05:30

HYDERABAD: Mahindra Satyam today announced that it had tied up with Gen-i, Australasian Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) services

provider, to provide a suite of leading edge Windows 7 migration services to its customers.

C P Gurnani, CEO, Mahindra Satyam said, "We are thrilled to strengthen and expand our relationship with Gen-i. The agreement leverages both companies' expertise to enable customers to realise an improved user experience with greater reliability and lower total cost of ownership."

Sarah Vaughan, Windows 7 Commercial Group Lead, Microsoft Australia, said that the alliance would bring increased business benefits to customers.

Mahindra Satyam's Windows 7 migration approach includes tools for automated testing, automated remediation and packaging of Vista, Windows 7 and App-V that aids enterprises to automate 90 to 95 per cent of its remediation requirements. This would help reduce the compatibility testing and remediation costs up to 40 to 50 per cent

Mahindra Satyam joins Symbian Foundation

2009-11-16T18:53:00.001+05:30

NEW DELHI: Mahindra Satyam, formerly Satyam Computer Services today announced its decision to join the Symbian Foundation, a mobile

software platform.

As a member of the Foundation, the company gains the immediate right to licence the Symbian Foundation platform without any royalty and source code fees, participate in the governance of the Foundation, and take part in joint marketing and branding campaigns, Mahindra Satyam said in a statement today.

The Symbian platform is an open-source operating system for mobile devices. It was created by merging/integrating software assets contributed by Nokia, NTT DoCoMo and Sony Ericsson, including Symbian OS, the S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) user interfaces.

Portions of the source code are already being moved to open source, under the Eclipse Public Licence, and by mid-2010, the process will be complete, the release said.

"The Symbian Foundation welcomes Mahindra Satyam into the community. By understanding and engaging with the Symbian platform, Mahindra Satyam will contribute to a growing, evolving mobile value chain," Symbian Head for Community Support Shaun Puckrin said.

Capgemini to expand India headcount

2009-11-15T17:37:00.001+05:30

NEW DELHI: Outsourcing firm Capgemini is all set to increase its India headcount with the opening of a new business information centre in Bangal

ore, according to a report in a business daily.

The Bangalore centre will take the company's India headcount beyond 21,000, an increase from its employee strength of 20,000 in home country France.

According to the company, the new centre in Bangalore would start with a workforce of 1,000, which would scale up to 3,000 in about 18 months.

Paul Nannetti, general manager of Capgemini's global business information service line, said, "Bangalore provides plenty of application and technical skills in information management." He added, "The company can scale-up there much more quickly than in onshore locations."

India is among the most attractive outsourcing destination for global MNCs including IBM, Accenture and Microsoft, giving tough competition to domestic players TCS, Wipro and Infosys. The country offers large pool of skilled and low-cost talent for business information management services that help companies improve their collection, use and analysis of data.

Pooja Chawla , Ahmedabad , says: Please do open a center at ahmedabad too..ahmedabad is lacking MNCs and as a city it has perfect infrastructure and manpower for any MNC to progress.
[10 Nov, 2009 | 1005 hrs IST]

Syed Arshad Ali , Bangalore , says: from when they r going hire the freshers
[4 Nov, 2009 | 0950 hrs IST]

Madhavi P , Bangalore , says: Its really nice to know about the expansion but i would like to know as a fresher what would be the openings available?As it would would be really helpful for us.. Madhavi P
[4 Nov, 2009 | 0800 hrs IST]

NEETA , hyderabad , says: THESE PEOPLE STILL DIDN'T CALL THE 2009 PASSED OUT SELECTED STUDENTS...... hope they will let us know all the campus selected guys when they will be taking.

Belgaum gets an aerospace SEZ

2009-11-15T12:44:00.002+05:30

BELGAUM: India’s aerospace engineering and manufacturing segment took a leap on Saturday with the launch of a 300-acre aerospace SEZ (special

economic zone) in Belgaum , North Karnataka.

In attendance on the momentous occasion were senior representatives of aircraft and aircraft-component makers from around the world, including Boeing,EADS (Airbus),Rolls Royce,Pratt & Whitney,United Technologies and Lockheed Martin.
Boeing India president Dinesh Keskar said this was the only facility of its kind outside HAL.The SEZ, promoted by Quest Global, aims to be a one-stop shop for everything from engineering-design services to manufacture of aircraft parts and sub-systems.

The SEZ has seen an investment of Rs 150 crore from Quest, and hosts three operations — an engineering services facility, a precision machining facility and a sheet metal facility. The last of these is in a joint venture with Canada’s Magellan Aerospace.

Three more MoUs were announced on Saturday; one was with with Belgian aerospace company SABCA to manufacture metallic parts and assembly work for the Airbus A350. This deal is expected to be worth $100 million over the next ten years. A second MoU was signed with Magellan to evaluate setting up a dedicated facility to manufacture components and sub-assemblies for aero engines . The third MoU was with Farinia Geie, a French foundry and forgings company to establish an aerospace forging facility.

Magellan VP Konrad Hahnelt said Quest had done complex work for Magellan which had encouraged the company to expand its relationship. “Setting up the kind of processing facility that we have in the SEZ is also complex, because such facilities have to get numerous approvals,” he said.

Sprint cutting up to 2,500 more employees from the payroll

2009-11-15T11:21:00.002+05:30

It's been a helluva couple years for Sprint -- new networks, new platforms, and new acquisitions have all been intermixed with a drawn-out recovery effort that's undoubtedly weighed heavy on the hearts and minds of staff at the company's dual headquarters in Kansas and Virginia. With more (albeit slower) subscriber losses in its most recent earning's report, it's still all but impossible to say whether they'll be able to survive in the long term as an independent operation, and we're not quite sure what to make of this latest move, either: a promise of 2,000 to 2,500 job cuts to be announced through the fourth quarter, many of which will be completed before the year's up. It gets a little weird here because Sprint's applying some hardcore spin in its press release, touting the fact that reduced calls to customer service -- ostensibly due to an improved experience -- have lessened the need for call center staff, but we're not really buying it; the business continues to shrink, and staff continue to be cut. The good news is that they're being cut at a much slower rate than before, so it's still entirely reasonable to believe that black ink is in sight -- particularly if they've got a killer 2010 lineup in store.

US Job losses, deep and enduring, especially for the young

2009-11-14T18:03:00.002+05:30

NEW YORK: The rise in unemployment that has occurred in the current recession has been hardest on young workers, while having a smaller effect on

older workers than previous downturns. Women have been more likely than men to hold on to their jobs.

The overall unemployment rate, which reached 10.2 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis last month, remains below the post-World War II peak of 10.8 per cent, reached in late 1982. But the proportion of workers who have been out of work for a long time is higher now than it has ever been since the Great Depression.

The persistence of joblessness for so many people – 5.6 million Americans have been out of work for more than half a year even though they have continued to seek employment – may provide the greatest challenge for the Obama administration if it decides to seek a new economic stimulus programme.

The short-term unemployment rate – the proportion of the work force that has been jobless for less than 15 weeks – has begun to decline, however, and stood at 4.5 per cent in October after peaking at 4.9 per cent in May.

That decline is a signal that the recession, which officially began in December 2007, probably has ended. In past recessions since World War II, the National Bureau of Economic Research has always dated the end within two months of the peak in short-term joblessness.

Over the last three years – since October 2006 – the overall unemployment rate has risen by 5.8 percentage points. That is the largest such increase since the Great Depression, providing another indication of the rapidity and severity of the current downturn.

Before this cycle, the sharpest 36-month increase since World War II was a 4.9 percentage point rise in the period that ended November 1982.

A government household survey in October found 7.7 million fewer jobs than in December 2006, when the employment-to-population ratio reached its high for the current cycle. The declines during the two earlier cycles, from November 1973 to June 1975 and from December 1979 to March 1983, were 0.8 per cent and 2.0 per cent, respectively.

Women have held on to jobs better than men have during this downturn, reflecting a pattern that prevailed during the previous cycles.

One major difference is how older workers have fared. The number of jobs held by men over 55 is up 5.6 per cent since the cycle began, and the number of jobs held by women of that age has risen by 9.3 per cent.

There are fewer jobs for workers age 54-64 than when the cycle began, but that group has done much better than younger workers.

By contrast, younger workers were more likely to hold on to their jobs in the two previous downturns.

It is not clear why that pattern has changed. It is against federal law to discriminate against older workers, but that law was passed in 1967, before either of the previous downturns. It could be that the plunge in real estate and stock prices in 2008 led fewer older workers to decide to retire.

The proportion of the work force out of work for more than 15 weeks reached 5.7 per cent in October, well above the 4.2 per cent figure reached in 1982. That had been the highest such figure since the government began calculating the number in 1948.

The proportion that has been out of work for at least 27 weeks – half a year – is now 3.6 per cent, also a record.

Master technology first; be a manager later, says Infosys

2009-11-13T10:27:00.001+05:30

Infosys Technologies has decided that its staffers must have at least six years of having worked on technology responsibilities before being asked to head a project.

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This is the latest move in a process that began 18 months earlier, after clients had complained that its project heads didn’t seem to have enough of technological skills. That, in turn, was because of the industry’s high growth and also the pace of attrition (employees quitting) in the sector.

So, many employees were being given managerial responsibilities within three to four years of joining. However, from last month, all freshers joining the company will have to compulsorily stay focused on technology for the first six years of their career. After this, they will have to choose to either grow vertically as a techie or take up managerial responsibilities.

Infosys says this new strategy, termed 'iRace', aims to re-map the technology skills of its software professionals and offer them roles based on their current level of experience and technological know-how.

It appears to have already had some adverse effect, for a section of employees in the junior and middle levels are understood to have resigned.

"Because of the high growth in the industry, people were being given managerial responsibilities within three to four years, making clients return to us and complain about the lack of their technology skills. We have now re-mapped the efficiency of our employees, as a result of which some high performers have been mapped upwards, while others have stayed in their previous positions,” says Nandita Gurjar, Group Head for Human Resources.

By doing so, we will be able to meet the clients' requirements in a much better manner, she adds.

To make the task smoother, Infosys has created 25 career streams. An employee who does not wish to take up managerial roles but stay focused on technology has to identify positions like technical architect and technical lead till he goes up the ladder to become the Unit Technology Manager (UTO), a position the company has created now. Henceforth, all 13 business units of the company will have UTOs, who will directly report to the chief technology officer (CTO) of the company.

Infosys started the exercise almost 18 months earlier, following an internal assessment by consulting agency, Mercer. Based on the results, the company decided to implement what Gurjar terms a 'role structuring'.

Industry insiders concur that when the IT sector was booming and demand was high, people with very little experience were being given roles of project managers or technical leads, as it was difficult for the company to get experienced people. However, with the greater supply of trained resources, especially in the wake of the economic recession, most Indian IT companies are busy redefining the roles.

"We have seen people becoming project managers with less than six years of experience, whereas in most global companies, especially product companies, project manager is a big role. A person who manages projects in those companies should have at least 14-15 years of experience, which helps him handle multiple projects and customers at a time.

Besides, when a person becomes a project manager in six years, this ends his chance to learn on technology platforms," says a person who works as a project manager in an Indian IT services company.

At the end of the second quarter in the present financial year, Infosys' headcount was 105,453, including 97,594 software professionals.

Accenture wants to learn Indian growth trick

2009-11-12T19:52:00.002+05:30

Mumbai: Nandan Sengupta, a bubbly 20-something software developer in his second year at Accenture India, can't hide his exuberance that he may get a chance to meet the company's chairman and chief executive officer Bill Green.

"We have been asked by our human resource department to send innovative ideas on how Accenture can accelerate its business in India. If my idea is selected then I would be sent to Delhi to discuss it with our chairman Bill Green who will be in India on the 13th of this month," Sengupta said.

Accenture is hosting its flagship annual event called Global Convergence Forum (GCF) involving clients, stakeholders and others for the first time in 20 years outside the US in Delhi this month, indicating the importance of India for the global consultancy firm.

"With Accenture's recognition of India as a strategic growth market, comes a big 'ask': how will we stretch ourselves to grow our India business, strengthen relationships with key government and industry stakeholders, and improve our delivery for international clients," read a mail sent to Accenture employees in India.

Meanwhile, in India to participate in the GCF, Accenture chairman Bill Green said the company will continue to focus on India, especially in the area of analytics. Green said that in the next two months the firm will hire another 8,000 in India taking the workforce strength in the country to 50,000 and globally to over 180,000.

"In India, besides many big firms, we have consulted firms which were yet to earn any revenue. We handhold them from their business conceptualisation stage to go-to-market," said an Accenture executive at the sidelines of a conference in Mumbai.

Accenture aims to bag IT and consulting projects from the current high-growth sectors in India such as utilities and pharmaceuticals. Top local IT firms and Accenture rivals such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys Technologies, HCL Technologies and Wipro Technologies, too, have started focusing on the domestic demand for IT.

TCS and Wipro already earn over $1 billion from their respective India businesses.
Accenture earned annual revenue of $21.58 billion for fiscal 2009 that ended August 31, 2009.

JDA Software to acquire i2 Technologies for $396 mn

2009-11-12T19:16:00.000+05:30

MUMBAI: Supply chain solutions provider, JDA Software Group has entered into an agreement to acquire US-based i2 Technologies for an estimated

amount of $396 million.

Post acquisition, the combined entity will create a global leader in the market of supply chain planning and optimization and will have annual revenue of $617 million, a press release said.

"The i2 acquisition will firmly establish JDA as a leading enterprise software company with a deep focus on supply chain management and a full complement of managed and hosted services offerings," JDA Chief Executive Officer, Hamish Brewer, said in the release.

The acquisition is expected to complete in the first quarter of 2010 and will take the total customer-base of the company to 6,000, the company said.

Also, the near term operating synergies resulting from the combination are expected to produce net annual cost savings of around $20 million, it said.

JDA Software has a global customer base of more than 5,800 retailers, manufacturers, wholesaler-distributors and services industries.

‘Virtual bench’ turns into real seats at mid-size IT cos

2009-11-12T13:29:00.002+05:30

Adith Charlie

Mumbai, Nov. 11 The concept of a ‘virtual bench’ for non-billable employees may soon be a thing of the past at mid-size Indian IT companies, thanks to the gradual improvement in demand for software solutions.

While Hexaware Technologies has brought back all the virtual benchers on to the regular rolls, Mastek expects to achieve the same by March 2010.

It may be recalled that both Mastek and Hexaware had come up with this out-of-the-box solution to reduce overall employee costs and remain profitable in a tough economic environment.

Mastek had announced in February that it had put about 10 per cent (or 425) of its total employee base on a ‘virtual bench’ for up to 12 months with reduced pay. Alternatively, the benched employees — a mix of trainees and junior employees — were given the option to quit with a severance package.

By the end of September quarter, the company had some 200 employees on the virtual bench, as the remaining were either re-instated or had quit the company.

As things stand, by March 2010 the company expects to call back the ‘benchers’ onto the billable pool, according to Mr Sudhakar Ram, Chairman and Managing Director of Mastek.

“We are seeing an expansion in our order book in the current quarter which should translate into revenue growth for the next quarter,” he told Business Line.

Starting this March, Hexaware had inducted around 220 staffers in the virtual bench who had to take a 50-per-cent-cut in basic pay.

However, things started changing for the Mumbai-based company during the three months ended September 2009 riding on the revival in IT spend across the globe. The company won deals worth $80 million in the previous quarter. Of these, three deals were worth more than $15 million each.

“In the wake of the changing demand scenario, the concept of virtual bench no longer exists at Hexaware. Not only that, we have restarted hiring,” Mr P. R. Chandrasekhar, Vice-Chairman and CEO of Hexaware, said.

In the quarter gone by, Hexaware took on board around 116 employees. “In the current quarter we plan to hire at least as much as we did in the previous quarter,” he said. However, both Hexaware and Mastek agree that attrition did play a role in bringing down the count on the virtual bench.

However, there does not seem to be much luck in store – at least for the time being – for the 5,000 employees covered under the virtual pool programme at Mahindra Satyam.

“As things progress, the situation with regards to employees on the virtual bench will gradually improve. We will reinstate these employees on a case-by-case basis,” a senior company official said.

Recently, Mahindra Satyam offered its virtual benchers the option to continue on the company’s rolls albeit without any pay, for another three months starting December 18.