BPOTiger

Satyam story: India sucks, Satyam to open centers in Brazil and Mexico, Australia, Europe, West Asia

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:50:49 -0700

When various state governments in India are creating IT parks in tier II and III cities, trying hard to get some big companies so that small and medium follows and giving subsidies and tax incentives so to get more employment opportunities. However, there are some companies like Satyam who made their fortunes from India (Chairman of Satyam Mr. B Ramalinga Raju is one of the richest billionaires from the world) wants to expand and create software development centers in countries like Brazil and Mexico instead of India.

Not just Brazil and Mexico, Satyam is also setting up IT and BPO centers in Egypt, Australia, Uruguay, West Asian and European countries.Thus says a report from Business Standard

You ask them, they will tell you 'facts' like how its important to be present in nearshore or how they practice 'corporate social responsibility' to uplift the poor, help the disabled, educate the uneducated etc. I dont want to get into these 'noble' paper details, but it seems India is not anymore Satyam's automatic choice for business. There are software companies from all across the world coming to India and really have aggressive future plans to recruit more and more eligible candidates. I can recall an example of CapGemini, a company from France, which was not doing too well in its own country, but since the time it came to India it never looked back. Now CapGemini has plans to recruit thousands in the coming years and have centers in almost all metros of the country.

Satyam does not care.

Read: CapGemini to double its employee strength in India by 2010

Read: How CapGemini embraced India

Strong rupee and weak dollar erode growth for IT companies in India

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:15:32 -0700

The value of US dollars earned by exports have cut into India’s high growth IT sector, says a study by CyberMedia.

It states that Indian IT companies more than the slowdown has been hit harder by the fact that Indian currency rupee gained 9% against dollar in 2007/08. However, domestic IT market in India is going strong. Global players like SAP, Dell and Accenture have entered the Indian IT’s top 20 list. Specialist firms like Financial Technologies and Bartronics have showed mani-fold rise in revenues while companies like HP and Cisco topped Rs. 5000 crore annual revenues earned within India.

US keen to overseas investors

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:09:45 -0700

With a gasping economy to deal with, Bush administration is opening up to investment from abroad. It is also proactively asking US big and small corporations to seize the opportunities to rebuild their equity fast. Recently, Temasek Holdings, an investment wing of Singapore government became largest shareholder in crumbling Merrill Lynch, which is finding desperate ways to revive from the collapse of housing related debt. There are also funds flowing in from China and UAE. Asia and Middle East based sovereign wealth funds has helped bail out companies like Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, which were also down by sub-prime crisis.

Do we have a national security issue here, an average America may ask. As per reply from White House, there is nothing to be worried about. As a matter of policy the United States is open to foreign investment and it welcomes it when overseas investors prefer to invest in US firms than others. It would be a concern if they don’t do so.

Singapore's Temasek confirms Merrill Lynch stake

Dell to compete with Apple, readying an iPod rival

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:10:28 -0700

In the recent months, personal computer maker Dell, has been testing a digital music player that could go on sale as early as September, reports Wall Street Journal. Dell’s new foray would put it into an Apple-led market that has defied assaults.

Companies like Microsoft and Sony have tried and failed to make a dent in the market dominated by Apple’s iPod players and iTunes store. The music player which Dell has been testing features a small navigation screen and basic button controls to scroll through music play lists.

Is a New Dell iPod Fighter in the Works (Again)?

ABB is not deterred by economic slowdown

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:49:26 -0700

Do you think economic slowdown will impact opportunities for Indian talent? ABB’s HR head, Gary Steel, when asked this question has said, recruitment at ABB for global roles isn’t driven by passport. Now that can be a sound byte for any budding business journalist. And its so contemporary and can be relevant at any part of the world for any MNC.

While answering the same question further he said that they believe in India’s potential as a market and would require 45,000 engineers in the next five years of which 7,000 has already been recruited globally. This means ABB is not deterred by so-called slowdown. In India, last year ABB hired 1,500 people and will be needing another 4,000 by next three years.

Full interview here

What is Remote Infrastructure Management?

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:10:10 -0700

Gartner definition: The remote support and management of various IT services that are related to infrastructure support from global delivery sites.

These services include the remote system monitoring of the following:

Data center
Networks (WAN and/or Lan)
E-mail solutions
Desktops/laptops and related peripherals
ERP system level support (such as SAP basis support)
Operating system and technical support such as Unix technical support and mainframe technical support.
Database administration

No wonder, with scopes immense, many big global service providers have jumped into the fray with a well-defined set of service offerings.

Indian IT firms come pauper in India due to lack of experience

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:10:03 -0700

Indian technology companies may successfully bag IT contracts from around the world, but they came as pauper on their own home turf. Commonwealth Youth Games which will be hosted in Pune this year has not found a single Indian It company bidding for the tender process for IT products, services and solutions.

Reason? One of the tender criteria is having provided IT solutions in at least one Olympic, Asian or Commonwealth Games in the last five years. And that’s where Indian IT companies have defaulted because no one has delivered projects in the said games. Source: Economic Times

Rains could not deter spirit of Mumbai, BPO business on as usual

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:11:13 -0700

As heavy rains poured in Mumbai in the last couple of weeks, the city by the side of Arabian sea saw its low-lying areas and suburbs (where quite a few BPO and outsourcing centers located) have been inundated. But it seems the rains could not deter the spirit of Mumbaikars. Its business as usual, so saying the big bosses.

For Sumit Chowdhury, Reliance Communications CIO, the scenario might just have been a bit different, if given a choice. "Well, I would like to be at home with hot piping bhajias, working simultaneously on my laptop."

He however, took his big car for the commute between his home and his office at DAKC in Navi Mumbai. "We have a broadband connection, and most of our work gets done through video conferencing, but we need to come to office on such days for critical meetings." Source

Life sciene sutsourcing dose to make pharma comapnies hale and hearty

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:10:06 -0700

Is there a single business segment which has not been affected (mostly positive, but negative as well) by information technology outsourcing? Now, there is this report in NDTV, which says, how pharmaceutical companies, already pressed with various issues, are getting back their competitiveness, thanks to some IT, companies.

They call its life science process outsourcing. A fairly new but rapidly growing segment of Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) where apart from technologists, we are inducting doctors, pharmacists and even nurses who bring understanding of medicare processes and help in extending services.

With global pharma companies leveraging IT to cut costs, Indian technology firms such as TCS, Satyam, Patni and Cognizant are now stepping up presence in life science space.

"Increasing costs of R&D, coupled with low productivity and poor bottom lines, have forced major pharma companies worldwide to outsource part of their data management activities to low-cost countries, thereby saving costs and time in the process," TCS Vice President and Global Head - Life Sciences and Healthcare ISU - Debashis Ghosh said.

Evalueserve to expand in Cluj, Romania, to hire 300

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:10:54 -0700

Indian companies are shopping in foreign countries. We have seen some successful endaveors last year by TCS and likes in US, Mexico and Philippines. Now its the turn of Romania. Evalueserve, an Indian KPO company, plans to set up a new center in Cluj. I am not sure whether the place falls in Romania or not. Wikpedia says it's in Romania, if I am mistaken kindly let me know.

Indian financial research and analysis company Evalueserve...has chosen Cluj as its base of European operations, where it will hire 300 people by 2012.source

Netscribes opens new center in Pune

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:10:33 -0700

From my friends I came to know that Pune recently became volatile when some politically backed goons massacred some educational institutes’ properties for some silly reasons (like local language should be given preference etc). But its nice to see that the incident has not made any dent in the corporate environment. Industry environment it seems hale and hearty and CEOs are talking about further growth and prospect.

KPO vendor Netscribes has strengthened its Indian operations by establishing its third facility in Pune, following those in Mumbai and Kolkata. The facility will serve as a high-end outsourcing hub for global clients in the financial and business consulting, research and analytics, corporate intelligence, and content management sectors. The Pune-based operations will assist the company’s activities in Mumbai and Kolkata. It will offer job opportunities primarily to business and financial analysts, content creation professionals, and knowledge consultants. Source

Syntel delivers good result, revenue crossed $100mn

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:10:03 -0700

it looks good when even in the difficult economic scenerio outsourcing firms put up good result in the stock market.

Nasdaq-listed Syntel, the business process outsourcing firm with operations in India, reported its second quarter results ended March 31, 2008.

The company’s net income for the second quarter ended June 30, 2008 was $17.4 million (Rs 74.8 crore) up 30.7 per cent compared to $13.3 million (Rs 57.2 crore) in the corresponding quarter last financial year.

For the first time the company’s revenue crossed the $100 million mark in a quarter. For the second quarter its revenue touched $103.4 million (Rs 444.6 crore) up 28.6 per cent from $80.4 million ( Rs.345.7 crores) in the prior-year period. Operating margins during the quarter were favorably impacted by depreciation in the Indian Rupee. source

Adventity joins hands with FMT Worldwide to combat Internet transaction fraud

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:10:39 -0700

As global paymemnt and card associations are increasingly becoming vulnerable to internet fraudsters, it makes good business sense to develop an end-to-end managed service solution to combat "card-not-present" fraud over the Internet.

According to APACS, the UK payments association, UK card-not-present fraud losses increased by 37 percent in 2007 and accounted for more than half of the GBP 535 million card fraud losses last year.

Adventity, a market leading knowledge and business process outsourcing firm, and FMT Worldwide, a leading provider of front-end Web application security and enhancement solutions, today entered into a strategic alliance to develop an end-to-end managed service solution to combat "card-not-present" fraud over the Internet.

Source

oDesk has raised $15Mn outsourcing development

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:50:27 -0700

The outsourcing freelancing company oDesk which bridges the gap between small comapnies and devlopers, coders, designers and engineers has has raised $15 million in a Series C funding round led by DAG Ventures. Existing investors Benchmark Capital, Globespan Capital Partners, and Sigma Partners also participated in the round. This brings oDesk's total funding to $29 million, reports TechCrunch.

Since its launch the site has been involved in $32 million worth of service transactions (it now keeps 10% of all fees, though that rate used to be higher). The site says that it will use the money to help fuel growth and "take advantage of any unexpected opportunities down the road".

Source: Washington Post

Loyalty pays off better than job hopping

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:45:55 -0700

That's what the Evalueserve survey has stated. In stead of job hopping,a job seeker would fetch more value financially and through better exposure to various functions if sticks to his/her company.

Evalueserve, a global research and analytics firm, recently conducted 70 interviews with vice presidents, senior vice presidents and human resource executives in prestigious Indian and multi-national companies in India from a representative set of industries.

The results showed the impact that job-hopping can have on the careers of young professionals in India. The findings could be relevant not only for young professionals, but also for companies recruiting and developing professionals in order to fuel their growth.