Mahindra Satyam to rejig US team

KOLKATA: Having effected changes to its top deck in Australia and New Zealand earlier, and in Europe just last week, Mahindra Satyam is now planning a reallocation of responsibilities at its bread-and-butter US operations that accounts for a major portion of its revenue.

On Sunday, Mahindra Satyam CEO C P Gurnani said a "reshuffle" in the United States is likely to be announced "in the next 7-10 days", while remaining hazy on what the proposed modifications would entail. While it was under Ramalinga Raju, the US accounted for 59-60% of the firm's revenue, a scenario that, Gurnani said, might not have changed much.

However, Gurnani (an ex-Tech Mahindra honcho) was quick to clarify that it would be incorrect to presume that the likely re-arrangement would necessarily result in a Tech Mahindra person being asked to head Mahindra Satyam's US operations.

Incidentally, the new head of Mahindra Satyam's Europe operations, Vikram Nair, used to enjoy the same position at Tech Mahindra before. Last month, GE — Mahindra Satyam's key client in the US and also one of its top 5 customers worldwide — announced that it was extending its multi-million dollar contract with the Indian company for three years, starting January 2010.
In September, another important US customer O C Tanner reaffirmed its commitment to Mahindra Satyam.

"Clearly, we will get to handle the enterprise applications side of the order that Tech Mahindra has bagged from Etisalat," Gurnani said.

Tit for tat: Indians bash up two Australians

Two Australians, who allegedly abused a group of Indians and vandalised their car, were bashed up, the police said on Monday.

The incident took place at a carpark outside Meadowglen International Athletics Stadium at Epping in Melbourne when a local skateboarder damaged the rear window of a car belonging to an Indian.

The skateboarder also used the abusive language against some Indians who were coming out of the stadium where a kabaddi match ended last night.

"Associates of the people, whose car was damaged, came to their assistance. Two men were assaulted and hit with sticks in the brawl. These two injured men were from the group outside who had allegedly started to verbally abuse the people from the vehicle," police said in a statement.

The two men, aged 25 and 42, were taken to Northern Hospital with minor injuries, they said. However, no arrests have been made and the incident was under investigations, police told PTI.

"A lot of people were leaving, the presentations were on at the time, I spoke to one of the boys that was there and he said a guy had smashed the rear window of a car that was leaving," Councillor from the City of Darebin Tim Singh, who was present at the medal presentations ceremony for kabaddi tournament, was quoted as saying by the media.

Singh said that the guy also made some racial comment following which the clash broke out between the two groups.

Meanwhile, another report quoted police officer Mark Doney as saying that the incident occurred when contestants of the team began to leave the venue.

"One of the youths there tried to get in the way of the cars and yelled out a bit of abuse at people. Obviously, push has come to shove and he smashed the panel of the side window of the car with the skateboard. It has escalated from there as some of his mates have come down the skatepark. A couple more were assaulted," he said.

Inspector Doney said the injured men hadn't pressed charges. "We don't have a complaint of assault from them," he said.

Indian companies best in terms of employee satisfaction: Study

NEW DELHI: Indian companies rank top among global peers in employee satisfaction, reflecting their successful business practices, says a

10 highest salary-earners of India Inc India's top 10 business houses Tycoons with a golden heart

study.

The findings are part of a report, 'Driving Success Through Performance Excellence and Employee Engagement,' by research arm of leading global HR solutions provider Kenexa.

The report is based on two employee-based indicators of business success, which can be used to measure and monitor a firm's state --the Performance Excellence Index (PEI) and the Employee Engagement Index (EEI).

"The higher the scores on these two indices, the better positioned employees are to deliver the organisation's value proposition. By improving their scores on these indices, organisations can improve their business results," Kenexa Research Institute executive director Jack Wiley said.

India ranks highest with 76 per cent on country-level PEI index of 14 countries. The index tracks employees' views of product and service quality and the firm's focus on customer service, quality, training and employee involvement.

Other than India, Russia also ranks high at 67 per cent, while Japan has reported the lowest score at 45 per cent.

Besides, the EEI index measures an employee's pride in his/her firm, willingness to advocate the employer, whether they intend to stay and their overall satisfaction.

India ranks the highest in the country-level EEI index as well, with a percentage of 73 per cent and is followed by Brazil (65 per cent). While Japan has the lowest score in this index at 36 per cent, the report revealed.

Kenexa Research Institute has introduced organisational model for high performance and employee engagement and includes practical insights that would have a positive impact on individual and organisational productivity, customer satisfaction and bottom-line financial results.
"Having a high performing organisation and an engaged workforce are complementary goals but they involve different leadership practices. Managers should pursue both goals in tandem as this has positive, synergistic effect," Wiley said.

"Leaders are expected to meet increasing productivity demands, yet with lower costs and fewer resources. That means employees need to be motivated and fully engaged in their work in order to support organisational objectives," he added.

The report also provided an analysis of the financial impact that performance excellence and employee engagement can have on an organisation.

It shows that performance excellence and employee engagement are major contributors to an organisation's 'total shareholder return'.

"Given the recent economic conditions, many organisations and employees are feeling particularly battered. The analysis tells us where employees are reporting strengths for improving performance, enabling leaders to modify their practices and improve their systems," Wiley said.

No ''vulgar'' salaries please, Khurshid tells India Inc

Sun, Oct 4 10:40 AM

New Delhi, Oct 4 (PTI) Having launched an austerity drive to check public expenditure, the government has advised India Inc to refrain from doling out "vulgar" salaries to CEOs. "I think when we are working on this (austerity), we can hardly say that we (will) shut our eyes on what salary the CEOs are going to take," Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told PTI when asked how the government intends to control salaries of CEOs which at times appear vulgar.

Pointing out that salaries of CEOs should be decided by shareholders, he said, "I don''t think anyone in India today, in politics or outside politics .

has reached the level of liberalism where vulgarity is also a fundamental right.

"Minister should not be judging who deserves what salary. We are moving away from control to regulation.

But it doesn''t mean that you are going to be completely free," he said. The issue regarding remuneration of company CEOs will be debated by the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which is scrutinising the provisions of the new Companies Bill tabled in the Lok Sabha in August, he said.

"Let''s get the opinion of the standing committee (on the Bill), then we will move forward," he said, pointing out that "it''s now before the same Parliament that has supported this attitude of austerity .

Let us see what their views are.

" The annual renumeration of some CEOs work out to be Rs 50 crore, which is more than 12,500 times the per capita income in the country.

Women Are a Majority On All Social Networks Except One

Women Are a Majority On All Social Networks Except One: "

The latest data from Google Ad Planner suggests that female users form a majority on all popular social networking sites except Digg where 64% of the traffic is from male users. The male to female ratio on LinkedIn and YouTube stands at 1.

Gender Balance on Social Networking Sites

Credits: David McCandless and Brian Solis.

Women Are a Majority On All Social Networks Except One

Originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal.

"

ITC: No shortage of smokers

Competition at the higher end of the Indian cigarette market is tipped to increase with the national rollout of Malboro and Philip Morris expected to bring in more global brands. However, that should expand the market and in any case, ITC’s volumes have been growing at 5-6 per cent.

Neither the higher VAT nor the modest price hikes have impacted volumes negatively and the weak monsoon too hasn’t hurt the business so far. That’s one reason why the ITC stock has been re-rated, the other reason being losses for the non-cigarette FMCG business should come down to around Rs 400 crore this year, with the profitability of the biscuits and retailing businesses improving.

In the June 2009 quarter, ITC reported losses of around Rs 100 crore for the non cigarette FMCG business, the sixth consecutive quarter of losses. But ITC’s personal care portfolio revenues, which were around Rs 200-250 crore last year are expected to grow to around Rs 300-320 crore in the current year, according to analysts, and the business should break even sometime in 2011-12, once it achieves scale.

Currently, high ad spends are eating into profits, though industry watchers say ITC has picked up a share of 3.5 per cent of the soap market with both Vivel and Superia doing well. The low brand loyalty in soaps, especially at the lower end, will however, remain a challenge for the company. Also, the high-end Fiama brand appears to be facing some competition from Hindustan Unliver’s Dove, which has gained market share.

ITC’s retailing business has been restructured and that should pay off; already, with the economy recovering, same store sales are picking up. Indeed, the better environment is helping the hotels business too with both occupancies as well as Average Room Rates (ARR), improving though margins would continue to be under pressure for some more time. That apart, the rationalisation of the agri-commodities business, with a focus on more profitable crops such as wheat and tobacco, will help expand margins for this segment.

In fact, the impact of some of the changes was seen in the June quarter when ITC’s operating profit margins rose 400 basis points to 33.6 per cent. Analysts have a price target of between Rs 255 and Rs 265 for the stock which currently trades at Rs 234.

129 students, mostly Indians, will be displaced from Australian college

MELBOURNE: At least 129 overseas students mostly from India will be displaced due to Australian government's rapid audit programme for "high risk" colleges which has led to closure of the fourth private institute in Melbourne in three months.

St George Institute of Professionals, a Melbourne-based vocational college offering courses in management, multimedia and graphic arts, was closed after a "rapid audit" launched by the government to cleanse its education sector. The students affected by the closure are expected to be offered a placement in suitable alternative courses at no extra cost.

The college, according to 'The Age', will surrender its registration from tomorrow.

The closure is a part of Victorian government efforts to audit 41 institutions regarded as a "high risk" to international students.

St George, which is based in Flinders Street in Melbourne's central business district, was registered as a private college in 1998.

Industry insiders had described it as a "very rotten apple" after the auditors found it had failed to comply with most of the necessary teaching and course standards required to operate as a training provider in Victoria.

Skills Minister Jacinta Allan who is currently in India, described the latest closure as disappointing and said the rapid audits were working to weed out "incompetent, unscrupulous education providers."

The students affected by St George's closure are expected to be offered a placement in suitable alternative courses so they can complete their studies at no extra cost.

The Government's industry regulator, Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, is working with Australian Council of Private Education and Training, and Commonwealth Government agencies, to find placements for the students as soon as possible.

VRQA director Lynn Glover said the rapid audit checked everything, from the college's marketing and pre-enrolment materials, to the qualifications of its teaching staff and its training and assessment materials.

Govt backtracks, to make CAS voluntary

After being operational for nearly three years in select parts of Delhi , Mumbai and Kolkata and over six years in Chennai, the Conditional Access System (CAS) for television is being given a quiet burial, at least for the rest of the country.

After deliberations with various stakeholders, including broadcasters and cable operators, the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry has decided to make the roll-out of CAS voluntary across the country, instead of being mandatory as originally planned.

"CAS is not an essential commodity that it has to be made mandatory just because a section of the industry wants it," a senior I&B official said on condition of anonymity.

"It is also a political decision," the source added. "The government can't be seen to be forcing people towards a particular system of consuming television when there are viable choices available in the market like DTH, cable via HITS or digital cable. So, we are planning to make it voluntary and will be looking at legal requirements to do so," he said.

CAS is a digital cable delivery system for broadcasting services via set top boxes (STBs). It was enforced in parts of the three major cities on January 1, 2007. In 2003, it was implemented in Chennai selectively, after which it covered the entire city.

CAS was implemented through a notification in 2007 after a Delhi High Court order -- in response to a petition from multi-system operators (MSOs) -- directed them to implement the service in parts of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.

The government, however, did not extend CAS to other cities, even though the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recommended that it should be rolled out countrywide. The government contended that it had not taken a final view and was consulting various stakeholders.

The government's move may impact the business plans of several large cable companies, especially MSOs like InCable, Hathway and WWIL that have invested over Rs 2,000 crore in servicing existing CAS areas.

"We do not understand voluntary CAS. Unless consumers or the cable operators are asked to move to a digital cable provided under mandatory CAS, no one will switch off their poor-quality analogue cable service," said A Mohan, executive vice president and head of regulatory affairs, Essel Group, which operates cable firms (WWIL), a DTH venture (Dish TV) and the Zee bouquet of channels.

"This move will also scuttle the government's plans to convert analogue cable infrastructure into digital by 2014," he added.

MSO operators say they may explore legal options if the government opts for a voluntary roll out. "If the government does not give a time-frame for the voluntary roll-out of CAS, legal recourse is still available to us," said a senior executive of (MSO) Alliance, the industry body on whose petition CAS was enforced in 2007.

Broadcasters like STAR, Zee, ESPN and so on will, however, be happy, since they consistently supported a voluntary system.

"We have supported a voluntary roll out of CAS all through because the pricing of channels is determined by market forces. In CAS, prices were fixed at ridiculously low rates. The fact is investments in different channels like sports is much higher, so they command a higher price, which we are not getting in CAS," said a senior executive of a well-known sports channel.

Experts, however, say apart from bringing in other benefits like curbing piracy and stopping under-reporting of cable homes by the cable operators, a move that impacts subscription revenues, CAS was enforced to provide consumers access to cable services at an extremely affordable monthly outgo as opposed to the highly fluctuating cable charges (ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 450 in the cities).

Trai had set the price of all genres of cable channels at Rs 5 in the CAS areas. Consumers could watch cable service for less than Rs 80 per month, as opposed to Rs 300 to Rs 350 before CAS was enforced. Despite this, CAS notched up sales of only about 600,000 STBs, whereas the three cities have around 8 million cable homes between them. Overall, there are 80-85 million cable homes in the country, of which nearly 15 million homes are now connected by the DTH.

"The 'stickiness' of a mandatory CAS customer is obviously much more so than in voluntary CAS. Also the digitisation drive across the country would slow down dramatically, which is not good," said Timy Kandhari, head of the media and entertainment practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

IT jobs may get left behind in recovery

Computerworld - Once IT spending begins again, companies in need of tech workers will likely turn first to consultants and outsourcing companies before they take on full-time staff. Whether this decision contributes to what's often called a "jobless recovery" will depend on where the work is going -- onshore or offshore.

This view is gleaned from surveys and analysts trying to understand what's next for the tech job market. In the hunt for clues about the future, some of the best evidence about what's head may be with companies that are already doing well. Take Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., for instance.

It's been a miserable year for many IT companies, but Cognizant, in its most recent quarter, reported a revenue gain of 13% to $776.6 million, boon growth for most companies. One reason for this can be explained by one of its customers, Emmaus, Penn.-based Rodale Inc., publisher of Prevention, Men's Health, and Women's Health magazines.

By hiring Cognizant, Rodale CIO Ken Citron was able to cut costs for infrastructure, hardware, help desks and networks by 15% on annual basis. The IT savings was achieved, in part, because Cognizant remotely manages some of the systems offshore.

About three quarters of Rodale's IT infrastructure employees became Cognizant employees, and the remaining either received severance or moved into some other role. While Rodale didn't want to disclose the number of employees affected by the change, Citron said the change is allowing the compay to focus on its core needs, especially its customer-facing applications and services.

Cognizant, based in Teaneck, N.J., finished last year with 62,000 employees, 12,000 of whom were in the U.S., and 47,000 in the Asia-Pacific region. Another U.S.-based outsourcing company with rapidly growing operations in India, Affiliated Computer Services Inc. in Dallas, reported $1.7 billion in revenue in its more recent quarter, a 6% increase. Xerox Corp. is buying it for $6.4 billion.

Will Cognizant and ACS help with a recovery or hurt it by shifting work overseas? The only IT spending category that is expected to finish 2009 in the black is outsourcing, with a 2.1% gain, said Forrester Research Inc., in a report released Tuesday. If that increase seems scant, consider that Forrester is expecting IT spending to decline overall by 9.3% for the year, led by a hardware spending plunge of 15.5%.

Andrew Bartels, the analyst who prepared the forecast, expects IT managers will be conservative about taking on new staff and will rely on consultants and outsourcers to meet immediate need.

"You probably won't start to see hiring for permanent staff until the middle of next year," Bartels said, but employers will hire consultants.

Forrester sees an overall strong recovery next year, with 7.7% growth, and it's going to be led by IT consulting services, which it expects will increase by 11.4%. Consultants can be, for instance, a laid-off Microsoft Cop. employee who is working independently or an offshore contractor hired through a consulting firm. Outsourcing itself will grow about 4.5%. Software spending will rise 9.3%, Forrester said.

Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO of Everest Group, an outsourcing research group, sees "some bounce" for IT services coming out of the recession because companies won't want to "grow back" the cost structure they had before the recession hit.

"You tend to look for cheaper and more flexible models, particularly offshore," he said.

But Bendor-Samuel also sees a far more mature offshore market with slower growth that won't see the same increases as years past.

Forrester isn't predicting the effect on hiring, but the recession has delivered a pool of available workers. The industry group TechServe Alliance, in Alexandria, Va., which analyzes U.S government IT occupation data that includes software engineering, programming and systems analysts jobs, found in June that IT employment was at 3.8 million, for a year-over-year decline of about 5%.

Fred Maidment, a management professor at the Ancell School of Business at Western Connecticut State University who has studied outsourcing's impact on workers, said that when companies start adding jobs again, many of those jobs may be created in other countries.

The downturn in 2001 to 2003 was the first time the U.S. felt the impact of the shift overseas in highly skilled, well-educated workers jobs and that shift is continuing. "This is going to be even more of a jobless recovery," Maidment said.

Kinds of employees companies want to hire

By Nick Tasler

There are two kinds of employees. Some believe they can make things happen, and the others believe that things happen to them. The first group believes that the outcome of their life and career is more or less in their own hands, and they wouldn't have it any other way. The other group takes more of a Forrest Gump approach: They sit around and wait for a bus to take them somewhere.

This distinguishing feature is captured by something called a "core self-evaluation." After more than a decade of research, psychologist Tim Judge has discovered that virtually all superstar employees—from rainmakers in the field to line workers on the floor all the way to big guns in the boardroom—have one thing in common: a high core self-evaluation. Judge describes core self-evaulation as "a person's fundamental bottom line evaluation of their abilities."

Judge and his colleagues have shown overwhelmingly that employees who feel like they control the events in their lives more than events control them and generally believe that they can make things turn out in their favor end up doing better on nearly every important measure of work performance. They sell more than other employees do. They give better customer service. They adjust better to foreign assignments. They are more motivated. They bring in an average of 50% to 150% more annual income than people who feel less control over the fate of their careers. Not surprisingly, these employees also like their jobs a lot more than the Gumps do.

BETTER PERFORMERS IN GOOD TIMES AND BAD

In one study, Judge and his team tracked the progress of more than 12,000 people from their teenage years to middle age. He found that core self-evaluations predicted who did and didn't capitalize on the advantages life dealt them. With only a bleak view of their capacity to handle life's challenges and opportunities, even the brightest kids born to executives and engineers failed to reach as high an annual income as their less fortunate classmates.

By contrast, the supremely confident sons and daughters of roofers and plumbers who had only mediocre SAT scores and below average grades earned a 30%-60% higher income than the smart kids with dreary views of their abilities. And those kids with all the advantages of intelligence and pedigree plus a firm belief in their competence earned three times as much money as their otherwise equally blessed peers.

It seems that the difference between the successful and the unsuccessful employees has as much to do with an employee's beliefs about her ability as the reality of that ability. Considering that this difference is based as much on illusion as on reality, you might think the employee's performance would take a serious nosedive under challenging circumstances.

After all, if you think you're special, what happens when your superior or your board tells you about the areas in which you're falling short? Worse yet, what happens when the self-described superstar finds himself laid off or responsible for a division with tanking revenues? In other words, what happens when people who believe they are capable of controlling the world find themselves in an economy that is out of control?

It turns out that this is when the true stars shine. Tough times weed out both those with low self-evaluations and those poseurs who only pretend to have a high self-evaluation—the narcissists. Judge finds that only about one in five people with a high core self-evaluation also scores high on measures of narcissism. That's probably why researchers continually find that those with a high self-evaluation do so much better in turbulent times compared with those with a dimmer view of their abilities, and compared with those narcissists with fragile egos.

In a series of studies by different researchers, employees with high self-evaluations have been found to respond better to corrective feedback. They also experience less stress and burnout than other employees, struggle less with work-life balance, and persevere more when searching for a job. Rather than shattering their beliefs in their abilities, it seems that a high self-evaluation creates a mental toughness that makes these people stronger and more resilient even when the chips are down.

THE CORE OF YOUR RECOVERY STRATEGY

To identify these stars who can take charge of your organization's rebound, you can use Judge's simple 12-question "Core Self-Evaluations Scale." (You can learn more about the scale and download it for free on Tim Judge's Web site.) It would also be a good idea to start keeping an eye out for these positive go-getters already working for you and consider giving them more responsibility and visibility in your recovery efforts. Here is how to spot them:

• "I Think I Can" Attitude: Kindergarten never taught a lesson more supported by empirical evidence than this: People who believe they can overcome challenges are more successful in virtually every sphere of life, including work.

• In Control: Does this employee take control of his work, or does he always point to outside circumstances when his projects go astray?

• Confident, Not Narcissistic: There is an important difference between having a high self-evaluation and being a narcissist. Does the employee pitch in when teammates need help, or bad-mouth co-workers they view as threats? Are they receptive or defensive when you give them feedback?

• Emotionally Stable: Employees who aren't easily discouraged are less likely to succumb to stress and burnout. They solve problems instead of saying, "See, I knew it wouldn't work!"

You could argue that getting these winners and their can-do attitudes on board still can't do much about a dismal economy. After more than a year of watching the economy go the way of the Titanic, nobody would blame you for trying to wait out the hard times. But do you really want to spend the coming months soothing your anxieties with a box of chocolates, and hoping that your bus arrives before the wind picks up?

Nick Tasler is a writer, researcher, and organizational psychologist. Tasler began his career at Andersen Consulting, was director of global research and development for think tank TalentSmart, and has consulted for Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller public and private enterprises. His book The Impulse Factor was named Best Career Book of 2008.