Archive for January, 2010

Texas radio search engine Radiotime to outsource software development to RP

January 27th, 2010

A Philippine investment in Texas-based radio search engine Radiotime, currently world’s leader in Internet-based radio search, is tapping Filipino software developers for its web application expansion.

Radiotime.com, an investee company of Philippine-based venture capital ICCP Ventures, is taking advantage of its partnership with ICCP through its outsourcing of software needs to Filipinos.

“We’ve built a lot of software. We’ve done some of these works in the Philippines, and we’re looking forward to do more software here,” said Radiotime Chief Executive Officer Bill Moore in an interview at an Ayala Foundation Innovation Forum.

An entirely entrepreneurial effort eight years ago, Radiotime has become 20 times much larger than its next competitor in the radio search engine business. Among its competitors are BBC and CBS radio. Its revenue comes from the sale of devices, software or hardware as part of the radio listenership service, and from advertising. It enables search of around 60,000 radio stations globally including those in the Philippines. Its market is mainly from North America, and then South America, followed by Asia.

ICCP which has investments in 40 companies put in $1 million into Radio Time for a 30 percent interest some four years ago, according to ICCP Group President William M. Valtos Jr.

“We saw very little technology risk in it. OEM (original equipment manufacturers) clients signified that Radiotime was ahead of its competition. Radiotime is in the best position to be the leader in radio media space,” said Valtos.

Radiotime has actually started acquisition talks with some big radio online businesses such as the US’ CBS. It has signed a contract with Nokia so that Nokia mobile phone users can listen to any radio station they like through Radiotime.

One does not have to be a subscriber to avail of Radiotime’s accelerated search service, but a regular listening service would require one to pay $50 per device. This device may be a software that an iPhone user can download or a physical device that one can plug in if he is using for instance a tabletop radio.

The company is growing at 10 percent per month, and its sales come from licensing agreements with certain companies. On the device, Radiotime has partnerships with companies like Philips or electronic parts manufacturers.

The site enables listeners to connect to radio through devices like TV, mobile phones, portable media players, PC and web-based applications. In order to ensure accurate station listings, it has partnerships with Sonos, Logitech Squeezebox, Cisco Home Audio, and Windows Media Center
ICCP has been able to invest in Radiotime as one of its board of directors has links with companies in Silicon Valley. It also has investments in Silicon Valley-based Marvell Technology which develops and markets integrated circuits, in Level Up!, Ionics Inc., Shopwise, and SiRT Technology which is led by its advisor, Dado Banatao, who is a co-founder of technology startups like S3 and Chips and Technologies.

Source:http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/240529/texas-radio-search-engine-radiotime-outsource-software-development-rp

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CSC Signs Application Support Contract with Conseco

January 27th, 2010

CSC (NYSE: CSC) today announced that Conseco Services, LLC of Carmel, Ind., has hired CSC to maintain and support two of its insurance administration systems. The five-year agreement enables Conseco to reduce expenses and achieve additional flexibility in the management of two large legacy applications.

CSC’s delivery framework leverages both on- and off-shore technical resources who have deep insurance industry experience and are highly trained in CSC’s intellectual property, one of the broadest portfolios in the industry, as well as in other life insurance software. CSC’s application outsourcing services include: application maintenance, development and enhancement; implementation and conversion services; upgrades and migrations; help desk; and testing.

“We chose to outsource many of the development functions related to two of our large legacy life insurance administration systems to a trusted, experienced provider. This move will reduce our costs and allow us to more effectively manage peak demands for IT services,” said Todd Coombes, chief technology officer at Conseco. “Based on CSC’s proven record in application outsourcing, we also expect this expanded relationship to help us continue to improve service to our agents and policyholders.”

“By working with CSC in this initiative, Conseco will be optimally positioned to support its dynamic needs and opportunities,” said Michael W. Risley, president of CSC’s Life and Annuity Division. “CSC’s application outsourcing services help carriers contain costs and mitigate financial risks in a trusted application environment.

Source:http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100127005179&newsLang=en

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Professional SEO Outsourcing Company India helps cut cost through Permission Marketing

January 27th, 2010

Traditional Marketing – advertising, telemarketing, email campaigns, pop-up ads and mailers – is interruption marketing, where you the attention of the prospect to get your message across, and it is unsolicited. Permission marketing is about engaging the consumer in your marketing campaign by seeking permission to send your communication or get her attention. But the first step in Permission marketing is an interruption of some kind. Here is where Pay Per Click Advertising is a perfect fit.

The market for IT outsourcing is expected to rebound to a small extent in 2010. Worldwide adoption of outsourcing is also expected to rise from 2010 onwards driven by the focus on cost reduction, keeping in mind the current recessionary environment. Environmental factors such as climate change, global warming, social responsibilities, and compliance issues are all adding up to increase pressure on margins; which can be mitigated by increasing outsourcing.

India will remain the preferred destination for outsourcing IT Services, including search engine optimization (SEO) and e-commerce website development.

The current recessionary economic outlook will increase pressure on marketing to deliver ROI and decrease promotion budget. The major component of promotional budget in companies continues to be traditional advertising, despite proven efficacy of internet marketing.

Traditional Marketing – advertising, telemarketing, email campaigns, pop-up ads and mailers – is interruption marketing. The marketer is seeking attention to his message by interrupting the attention of the prospect. The consumer did not ask you to send the mailer or call her in the middle of her busy schedule. This naturally leads to wasteful expenditure of promotion budget.

Permission marketing is about engaging the consumer in your marketing campaign by seeking permission to send your communication or get her attention. You can get permission by offering some form of reward – maybe a free SEO report, or valuable information related to her profession or even a free lunch or discount coupon.

But the first step in Permission marketing is an interruption of some kind. You need to get the attention of the consumer by some form of advertising. There after you seek permission to send the next communication, until she chooses to opt out.

Here is where Pay Per Click Advertising is a perfect fit. PPC is a form of internet advertising where the consumer is taken to your website only when she clicks on the ad. To get her attention and interest in clicking, you can offer a reward such as free SEO evaluation report of her website or free sample of your product in the text of PPC Ad. Once she reaches your website, you can coax her to give her email address and agree to receive communication from you, in exchange for the free offer. Once you have engaged her interest, you can offer to call her to explain how your product works or in case of of an SEO Agency, how your SEO services will bring her site to first page of search results and thereby multiply organic search traffic.

Sending email costs nothing and with email campaign management software, you can deliver personalized email to thousands in your prospect database. You can flag each prospect as she goes through your sales funnel at various stages of your campaign from suspect stage to a customer.

Sending email to prospects who have signed up for your marketing program is many times more effective than sending spam mail to people who do not know your company.

At each stage of campaign, the prospect can be coaxed to re-visit your website, maybe to download a e-coupon from her online account which she created on her first visit. When she visits the website, she may look at your other products. In alignment with your campaign, your website should be interactive. If it can be personalized by each user, with features or products based on user’s interest, user will be motivated to re-visit your website.

Website traffic is one of the parameters considered by search engine algorithms in ranking sites in search results. This way, your PPC campaign feeds into your SEO campaign.

The cost of running such a campaign over long term on TV or print advertisement is prohibitive considering the clutter and low attention span of consumers. But when they receive an email from a company they know, their interest in aroused.

The cost of a permission campaign per consumer outlined above would be cost of pay per click on the PPC Ad plus cost of freebees. The customer acquisition cost would be much less than traditional junk mailer campaign or TV ad campaign, since the cost of reaching the prospect at subsequent stages through an email campaign is zero.

The world wide web has flattened the world, not only with respect to geography but also with respect to size. On the web, size does not matter. No matter how small the size of your business, you can be as effective as your biggest competitor.

Source : http://www.pr-inside.com/professional-seo-outsourcing-company-india-r1689277.htm

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Bharti and BSNL to outsource fibre network management

January 27th, 2010

India’s Bharti Airtel has reportedly called on interested parties to submit bids for the outsourcing of the management of its fibre-optic cable network with a view to completing a deal before the end of March 2010, the Economic Times reports. The announcement follows similar indications in August 2009 that the telco was looking to outsource the management and maintenance of its fibre infrastructure, which as at January 2010 stretches for more than 100,000km. Commenting on the options for moving the process forward, Bharti’s CEO Manoj Kohli said: ‘We will form a joint venture and have a stake in the company to which we award this contract.’ The deal is estimated to be worth as much as USD1 billion over a five-year period. Having inked a deal with Alcatel-Lucent in April 2009 for the management of its landline and broadband business, the French-US vendor is the favourite to bag the contract, although Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks have also been mooted as possible winners.

Meanwhile, state-owned telco Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), which owns and operates India’s largest domestic fibre network, is also preparing to invite bids in February to outsource the management of its network; the telco expects to close a deal by the end of the second half of this fiscal year.

Source:http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=31824&email=html

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IBM partners with Convergys for US Census BPO

January 27th, 2010

IBM has signed a business process outsourcing (BPO) contract with Convergys to provide customer service and data accuracy services for the upcoming 2010 US census, in a project that will need more than 1,500 agents.

As part of the outsourcing deal, Convergys’ contact centre agents will call citizens who have submitted incomplete or inaccurate census questionnaires to improve data accuracy.

“For government funding to be done fairly, the Bureau of the Census needs to count everyone, count them once, and count them in the right location,” said Jim Boyce, Convergys President, Global Sales and Services.

The Bureau of the Census counts all United States residents every 10 years and will mail or deliver census questionnaires to each household in March 2010.

Source:http://www.sourcingfocus.com/index.php/site/newsitem/2098/

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Software outsourcing improves

January 27th, 2010

The Vietnamese software outsourcing industry is seeing good signs after the tough times of the global economic crisis, said Viet Nam Software Association general secretary Pham Tan Cong.

FPT Software Joint Stock Co announced that it had started implementing a US$2 million software outsourcing contract for a Japanese partner. The project, named Nina, aimed to develop core retail and e-commerce software for Nissen Co. This was the largest software outsourcing project the Japanese market had ordered in Viet Nam.

FPT Software set a goal of posting a 20 per cent growth rate for this year, pushing expected growth from several markets such as the US, EU and Japan, a company spokesperson said.

Other software companies have also revealed their high growth rate targets this year, such as VietSoftware International, with 200-250 per cent, and Run Systems Co, with 30-40 per cent.

VietSoftware International director Le Xuan Hai attributed the ambitious results to the company’s efforts to foster its management capacity and to improve its personnel during the previous year to better prepare for the recovery time ahead.

Meanwhile, Tinh Van Outsourcing Co deputy director Nguyen Ich Van described the previous difficult year as a good time for local software outsourcing firms to focus on training staff to raise standards.

This year would open up new business opportunities, as long as the firms made good preparations, he said.

However, Hai warned that the Vietnamese firms would be faced with harsher competition in prices and quality from foreign rivals this year.

A report released recently by the association and the US-based International Data Corporation stated that the software industry was facing key hurdles, including a shortage of human resources; IT infrastructure; foreign language capacity; copyright protection; capital; branding; supportive Government policies; strategic routes for the industry’s development; and funds for research and development.

At the same time, 40 per cent of software companies claimed ignorance of two important industry policies: the “software engineering development programme until 2010″ and the “Viet Nam digital content industry until 2010″, proposed by the MIC and approved by the Prime Minister in 2007.

Three popular products that 60 per cent of the participating companies provided were web-based applications, specific customer solutions and IT consultation. Fifty per cent were involved in software outsourcing.

This was the first report to capture a big-picture view of the software engineering industry nationwide, with participation from 149 software companies, 19 of which were joint-ventures.

Source:http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=02BUS260110

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Outsourcing roars back to India, China

January 27th, 2010

Outsourcing has roared back to life in the last six months with some of it moving to countries like India, and from India to other places like China, the Philippines, Costa Rica and even Romania, according to a new study.

“After fizzling out over the past couple years as companies simply slashed jobs rather than move them, outsourcing is back in vogue,” Forbes.com reported Monday citing a new PricewaterhouseCoopers study.

“Cost is still the major factor,” Charles Aird, managing director for shared services practices at PWC, was quoted as saying. “But people are also looking for greater efficiency, better quality and access to talent.”

The list of what’s being outsourced is growing, too, with much of the recent growth being driven by competitors playing catch-up to market leaders that slashed their costs prior to the downturn.

Not everything can be outsourced effectively, though, Forbes said suggesting, “Computer customer service that was outsourced to India, for example, was notorious for alienating customers.”

“Dell eventually brought much of its call-centre support back into the US from India, while Apple has made a point of keeping support within the country in which the calls originate,” it said.

In contrast, application development – a much more complicated skill set – that was outsourced to India has proved to be extremely successful, it said.

There also is a risk that outsourcing some core services can cause damage to a company Forbes said citing Aird: “The key is that you’ve got to tie your sourcing strategy to your business strategy.”

Not everything can be outsourced to the same place. India, which was the first big outsourcing centre, is largely bound by the English-speaking world, Forbes said.

Other countries such as China, with an equivalent-size labour pool; Poland, with about 40 million workers, and others, with much smaller pools of trained workers, are stepping up their outsourcing skills training for non-English-speaking countries, it noted.

Most of these operations are fairly fluid for entry-level positions. Clerical-level staff is in an almost constant state of churn, and goes to the lowest-cost region of trained workers.

Programmers are more valuable, and to prevent poaching, the salaries have risen from about $100 a month in 1994 to about $3,000 a month now in India, Forbes noted.

Source: http://smetimes.tradeindia.com/smetimes/news/industry/2010/Jan/27/outsourcing-roars-back-to-india-china14526.html

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