CeBIT is an annual trade show exclusively for the digital industry. At this event companies from world over exhibit their products and services, showcase their innovative solutions and industry experts host conferences on prominent IT issues. This year CeBIT is organized in the city of Hannover, Germany from 6 March to 10 March 2012. Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google will be the keynote speaker at the opening ceremony of the event.

Over 20 years, CeBIT has emerged as a vital platform for businesses to meet clients, initiate deals, form synergistic partnership and a unique opportunity to network with top influencers of the digital industry. India is the global hub for offshore IT services. Around thirty companies from various states of the country are participating in CeBIT 2012 trade show. The interesting fact, however is that, about one third of these is from the western state Gujarat. Companies such as OpenXcell Technolabs, Cygnet Infotech, Elitecore Technologies and Radixweb are enterprise solution pioneers in their own rights and will showcase their services in the CeBIT IT trade show.

“It is exciting to know that most of the peer group companies such as Elsner Technologies, Hi-Tech Outsourcing Services, InheritX Solutions are going to exhibit in CeBIT 2012” says Mr. Jayneel Patel, Director of OpenXcell Technolabs, a software and consulting company in Gujarat. Last year the IT trade show attracted over 300,000 visitors from more than 110 countries among which were USA, Romania, Iran, UK, China, Egypt, Germany and Spain. Revealing his mind on such a positive participation of Gujarat based companies Mr. Jayneel Patel says, “This is a strong indication of Gujarat becoming the next big IT center after Bangalore.”

CeBIT is focused on encouraging innovation and developing rewarding solutions in the field of information and communication technology (ICT). This year the event will be organized under four theme-centric platforms such as Lab- for research, Life- for enhancing lifestyle, Gov- for public sector and finally Pro which is a dedicated platform for business operations solutions.

Participants can exhibit their products and services as a stand-alone presentation, in group pavilion or choose from special offer packages. The event attracted 500 top decision makers and CIOs from the world’s biggest companies the last year. Over a thousand journalists directly report about the event. Participation of Indian companies will get their efforts and good work noted by the top IT honchos and potential customers globally.

OpenXcell Technolabs will be presenting at CeBIT 2012 in hall 6, stand D44 all through 6 March to 10 March 2012. The India based company will showcase its premier CRM and ECM solutions along with cross platform mobile solutions at the event. It is an ISO 9001:2008 certified company.

Source:http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/sbwire-126375.htm

IBM, the No. 2 computer services provider, took the wraps off a 900,000 square-foot data center in India for Tulip Telecom, one of that nation’s fast-growing telecommunications carriers.

The Bangalore center, a year in the making, cost “in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” IBM VP for global sites and facilities services Steve Sams said in an interview. He declined to be more specific.

The center is India’s biggest and Tulip Telcom has already invited in the chief information officers of India’s top 150 companies to show them its capabilities, Sams said. Morever, another leading U.S. technology company, which he refused to identify, is also conducting operations in the IBM center, he added.

Armonk, N.Y. based IBM is far from the only U.S. information technology company with many personnel and officers in India. Others including Hewlett-Packard, Accenture, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Oracle have Indian operations, some for outsourcing for multinational clients but now increasingly to serve Indian customers.

Tulip Telecom, which provides business-to-business services rather than focus on the consumer, approached IBM for a long-term partnership more than a year ago, Sams said. Tulip CEO and founder Hardeep S. Bedi said he had chosen the 101-year-old U.S. company for its “global expertise in designing and building innovative energy efficient cloud data centers that should support our needs now and in the future.”

Besides Bangalore, the heart of the Indian IT sector, New Delhi-basedTulip may ask IBM to build another data center in Mumbai, the country’s financial center, the IBM VP said.

Only about half of the ultra-modern center’s space will be used for computing services, Sams explained. The other half will be for support services, including an extremely efficient power system designed with redundant services.

Sams, who said he has a staff of 1,000, including mechanical engineers as well as IT professionals and electrical engineers, said more such centers are in the works. One that has been announced is an IBM complex in China for Range Technology, intended to be the largest cloud computing complex in Asia.

IBM shares rose 53 cents to close at $193.35 Tuesday. They have gained 5 percent so far this year. Shares of Tulip closed down 6 percent at 108.2 rupees in Indian trading Tuesday.

Source:http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/294333/20120207/ibm-data-tulip-center-outsourcing-services-india.htm

India on Tuesday expressed hope that the current economic woes in the US would not lead to protectionism and said that concerns of the Indian IT industry over anti-outsourcing measures announced by President Barack Obama recently will be addressed quickly.

Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai on his first bilateral visit to the US said that the Indian IT industry in the US has contributed $15 billion in taxes alone in the last five years and underlined the need to eliminate discriminatory actions.

Mathai is believed to have raised the issue in his meeting with the officials of Commerce Department yesterday in the backdrop of Obama’s State of the Union address in which he outlined measures to bring jobs back to the country.

Obama had said his administration would offer incentives to those firms which will create jobs in the country.

Mathai in his address to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said, “Indian IT industry contributed $15 billion in taxes over the last five years. This success story should not be set back by stringent visa regulations which act as a non-tariff barrier.”

“We do hope the current economic challenges in the US would not lead to protectionism and that concerns of Indian IT industry will be addressed quickly,” he said.

NASSCOM estimates that Indian industry employs over 100,000 in the US up from 20,000 six years ago, he said adding it supports 200,000 other jobs, including indirect ones, apart from enhancing the competitiveness of some the US industries.

Source:http://ibnlive.in.com/news/address-concerns-of-it-industry-india-to-us/228143-2.html

CeBIT is the world’s largest IT fair, the participating companies and visitors from all corners of the world attracts. Indian IT companies to participate in such an international forum to make their presence at the international level.

CeBIT is an annual trade show exclusively for the digital industry. At this event are companies from around the world, their products and services, will present their innovative solutions and conferences on prominent experts from the IT industry topics. This year at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany organized by sixth March to 10 March 2012. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google will be the keynote speaker at the opening of the event.

More than 20 years has become important to CeBIT as a platform for companies to meet customers to initiate offers to form synergistic partner in prison and a unique opportunity for networks with top influencers of the digital industry. India is the hub for offshore IT services. Some 30 companies from different states of the country are participating in CeBIT 2012 Exhibition. The interesting fact is that about a third of them from the western state of Gujarat. Companies like OpenXcell Technolabs Cygnet Infotech, Elitecore Technologies and enterprise solution Radixweb are pioneers in their own rights and present their services at the CeBIT IT fair.

“It is good to know interesting that most of the company peer group as Elsner Technologies, Hi-Tech Outsourcing Services InheritX Solutions exhibition in CeBIT 2012,” says Mr. Jayneel Patel, Director of OpenXcell Technolabs, a software and consulting company in Gujarat. Last year, the IT show over 300,000 visitors from more than 110 countries, has attracted, among whom were United States, Romania, Iran, Great Britain, China, Egypt, Germany and Spain. He reveals his soul in such a positive part of Gujarat-based company, Mr. Jayneel Patel says: “This is a strong indication of Gujarat, the next major IT hub of Bangalore to be.”

CeBIT focuses on the promotion of innovation and development of profitable solutions in information and communication technology (ICT). The event will be this year as part of four topic-centric platforms will be organized in such as laboratory research, the life-to improve the lifestyle, directing the public sector and finally Pro, which is a dedicated platform for business solutions.

Participants can stand-alone presentation to show their products and services, select the group or pavilion offers from top. The event attracted 500 top decision-makers and CIOs from the largest companies in the last year. More than a thousand journalists will report on the event. The participation of Indian companies maintain their efforts and good work from the top IT honchos and potential customers worldwide noted.

OpenXcell Technolabs presented at CeBIT 2012 in hall 6, stand D44 until March 6th to 10th March 2012. The company, based in India presents its leading CRM and ECM solutions, together with cross-platform mobile solutions at the event.

Source:http://www.artikel-presse.de/?p=475173

India continues to remain the preferred offshoring destination for technology and service outsourcing despite political rhetoric in the developed West against it and talk that India is losing its competitive advantage for IT and back-office services.
A close look at the new service

delivery centres opened in 2011 shows that around one third of the total came up in India, beating all other regions in the world including Europe, Latin America and China.

A service delivery centre is a campus or a unit to carry out IT or other services, either by an independent vendor or the captive unit of a company headquartered overseas.

The data further points out that within India it is not that Bangalore(s) and Hyderabad(s) are the only favourites, rather smaller cities such as Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Dehradun, Nagpur and Kochi, are also finding favour with big corporations.

“The cost of setting up a service delivery centre in a smaller city of US or Europe is quite high,” Salil Dani, research director at consultancy firm Everest Group told HT. “And it proves even costlier when a company needs to scale up operations at this centre.”

A delivery centre in India brings other advantages such as relatively lower attrition levels, low wage inflation and being the employer of choice in the city.

“A company by reasonable work allocation between its centres in India ensures both cost effectiveness and quality. This effectively means that while smaller centres carry on with transactional work, all judgemental work remains with its bigger centres in India,” said Dani.

Source:http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/SectorsBPOs/India-key-IT-destination-despite-challenges/Article1-807657.aspx

Fitch Ratings says that despite an expected moderation in revenue growth in 2012 from 2011 levels, the outlook for the Indian IT services sector is stable on the back of its strong liquidity position. However, the revenue growth may decline from a slowdown in the demand for IT services because of uncertainty regarding economic growth in the key markets of US and eurozone.

Employee hiring increased in 2011 in anticipation of improving demand in the sector, resulting in higher wage costs; and thus negatively impacted EBIDTA margins for the nine-month period ended December 2011. The moderation in revenue growth is likely to exert further margin pressures. The depreciating Indian rupee, which lost around 15% of its value against the US dollar during January-December 2011, is likely to provide some relief to the margins over the short-term as about 60% of Indian IT export contracts are USD-denominated. However, over the medium-term, some of the advantage may erode due to the increasing competition.

Fitch believes that the liquidity of the Indian IT services companies would remain comfortable in 2012, backed by their high cash balances, low debt levels and positive free cash flows from the recurring and critical nature of IT services. However, demand contraction due to a double-dip recession and /or any increase in M&A activity, large dividend payouts, share buybacks and/or an expansion in receivables periods are the key risks to liquidity.

M&A activity is likely to continue in 2012, with Indian IT services companies focusing on acquiring targets in specific industry verticals and geographies. The possibility of large-scale acquisitions, which either drain liquidity substantially or increase leverage, continues to be a credit concern.

The outlook could be revised to negative if there is a sustained decline in EBIDTA margins, leading to a reduction in liquidity. Factors that are likely to negatively impact EBIDTA margins are demand slowdown and /or increased competition, leading to price reductions. The ratings of individual companies could be adversely affected by event risks such as acquisitions and shareholder-friendly actions which would either drain liquidity or result in a material increase in debt levels. Any adverse change in the proportion of offshoring/outsourcing revenues due to regulatory developments could also affect the sector negatively.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/outlook-stable-for-indian-it-services-sector-in-2012-fitch/articleshow/11737877.cms

Davos is over for another year, but here’s something we missed: HCL Technologies, India’s fourth-largest IT company, plans to add 10,000 jobs in the west in the next five years.

Call it the new world helping out the old – and a convenient way to deflect complaints about Indian IT companies sucking jobs out of the US and Europe during tough economic times.

Perhaps keen to avoid the stigma associated with outsourcing, HCL Technologies (HCLTECH:NSI), which operates in 26 countries and had consolidated revenues of $3.9bn as of the end of 2011 – announced last week that it would create 10,000 jobs over the next five years in Europe and the US as part of its pursuit of a “socially responsible business model”.

Nayar and his colleagues are probably also hoping to influence American and European politicians who accuse companies of “shipping jobs overseas”. Or counter the sort of language US vice-president Joe Biden employed last week on the campaign trail in New Hampshire when he tried out a not-very-good Indian accent to talk about outsourcing.

Over the past few years, India and the US have clashed over visa regulations as high unemployment brought out concerns about outsourcing. IT companies headed by Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services, are all trying to reposition themselves as creators of jobs locally rather than thieves bent on taking jobs to cheaper countries overseas.

Last year, TCS announced it would hire 6,000 people – 10 per cent of the total 60,000 in planned hiring – overseas by the end of the fiscal year ending in March 2012. On Tuesday, the company inaugurated the worldwide headquarters of the company’s Mobility Solutions Unit in Silicon Valley. Infosys, for its part, in July announced it would hire 800 people in the US.

Hiring locally isn’t a wholly cynical pursuit, however, as it also helps such companies create physical onshore presences in countries where they wish to expand their portfolio into higher-end consulting services, said Abhishek Shindadkar, analyst at ICICI Securities.

“These companies are trying to penetrate into markets and verticals with new service lines [and] then you have to have onshore capability, or near-shore capability, especially when you’re trying to move up the value chain from just pure play IT services to transformational deals,” he told beyondbrics.

Still, the initiative doubles as savvy PR at a time when Indian IT companies could use a little, one Mumbai-based analyst who did not wish to be named told beyondbrics.

“A lot of companies nowadays are getting conscious – some of the governments are raising the bar for rhetoric for outsourcing given that they are in an election year,” he said. “A lot of companies are trying to reposition themselves as the companies that are creating jobs and not just taking jobs overseas.”

Source:http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/01/31/indian-it-hcl-goes-local/#axzz1l6ODvFBf

Dell is on the prowl for an India acquisition worth up to $1 billion (Rs 5,000 crore), part of a strategy to bolster its information technology services business and compete better against the likes of IBM and Accenture.

The world’s third-largest computer maker wants to buy a mid-sized Indian tech firm with “several thousands of staff” and revenues of $500 million to $1 billion or even more, Suresh Vaswani, chairman of the company’s Indian operations and executive vicepresident of the Dell’s global application and BPO business, told ET.

He declined to say which companies Dell, which has cash of about $16 billion, is interested in, but bankers identified Hexaware Technologies and NIIT Technologies, each with revenues of around $300 million, as potential targets. Both companies have been denying plans to sell. Vaswani, a Wipro veteran who joined Dell last year to help the company grow its services business, said mid-sized firms with a majority of staff in India and with expertise in areas such as banking or healthcare will make good targets.

“The services acquisition can be Perot Systems-like but with more India leverage and in the tier-II space. They may be $700 million or $800 million (by revenue) in one vertical and may even be ahead of tier-I companies in that space. We don’t have to look at one; we could look at two,” he said.

Dell acquired Perot Systems for $3.9 billion in 2009, marking its entry into the services space. The acquisitions also gave it significant offshore delivery capabilities and strength in the healthcare services business.

Experts familiar with Dell’s strategy said the company plans to leverage acquisitions to more than double, or even treble, its current IT services revenues of $8 billion in 3-4 years. Dell has said it wants to increase revenues from IT services to $11 billion in three years, but this does not account for business from any potential acquisitions. IT services contribute less than 15% to Dell’s total income.

From around 28,000 staff in India, Dell plans to ramp up to a level where it can compete more effectively against IBM, which has over 1,00,000 employees in the country. This can only be achieved through an acquisition; competing with traditional campus recruiters such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro to hire hundreds of software engineers will be difficult.

Once the world’s largest PC maker, Dell has lost more than a quarter of its share in the commoditised computer market to aggressive Asian rivals such as Lenovo. Now, the company wants a bigger share of the high-margin IT services pie to improve profitability by bundling computer hardware with outsourcing contracts.

IBM had a head start in IT services when in 2005 it sold its PC business to Lenovo to focus on the rapidly-growing areas of software and services. IBM now gets over half of its $100 billion revenues from services.

“These companies are looking at a trillion-dollar market which is only growing. Dell has been an acquisitive company especially in the services space. A mid-sized acquisition will definitely add value for them and help them respond to clients faster,” said Viral Thakker, a partner at KPMG.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/dell-readies-rs-5000-crore-war-chest-for-india-buyout-to-boost-it-business/articleshow/11691859.cms

Indian outsourcer HCL Technologies said it plans to hire 10,000 IT pros in the U.S. and Europe in the next five years as part of an effort to diversify its operations beyond its stronghold on the Asian subcontinent.

A spokesperson said it’s too soon to estimate how those numbers will be split between the two geographies.

HCL officials said the company needs more workers located at or near the Western clients it serves as it looks to move beyond routine tech services and into higher-end strategy and consulting engagements. Also, chairman and CEO Vineet Nayar has said that pressure from protest movements like Occupy Wall Street could lead many Western businesses to reduce offshore outsourcing, and that Indian IT firms need to respond by keeping more work on shore.

“The need of the hour is growth and employment, and we believe that this initiative will create unique business value for HCL while generating sustainable employment in local economies for years to come,” said Nayar, in a statement this week from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

To bolster its U.S. head count, HCL said it plans to hire workers at engineering hubs in Seattle, Raleigh, Rochester, and Wilsonville, Ore. “We are committed to backing this program with all our resources and best intent,” said Nayar.

HCL’s initiative comes at a time when pressure is mounting on businesses to keep jobs on shore as the U.S. struggles to reduce an unemployment rate that has been stuck at around the 9% mark for several quarters. In his State of The Union address earlier this week, President Obama said he planned to introduce measures that would discourage offshoring.

“We will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits,” said the President. “Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it. So let’s change it.”

“If you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it,” Obama said. The President recently held an insourcing jobs summit at the White House.

HCL said it is working with colleges and universities near its U.S. client sites to help establish training programs that would give students practical IT skills that will allow them to work in the tech services industry immediately upon graduation.

HCL said it has also launched off-campus recruitment drives near a number of schools, including Virginia Tech, Oregon State University, and North Carolina State University. Global outsourcing industry revenue increased 40% year-over-year in the most recent quarter, according to market watcher TPI.

Source:http://www.informationweek.com/news/services/outsourcing/232500637

Ayodya Prasad Gaur was destined to follow his father into the Indian government’s revenue service.
“My father always told me to go into the revenue service. It was safe and you earned a good salary,” he says.

But opportunity came to a remote part of Rajasthan in the form of a multinational energy company that could hardly have been imagined a decade ago. It changed Mr Gaur’s life.

An oil strike by Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy lead to production of 125,000 barrels per day. Thousands of new jobs have been created in a hostile desert region transformed into a mini-Texas.

The Barmer region, where summer temperatures rise above 50 degrees, was nicknamed “Kalapani” by locals, after India’s equivalent of Alcatraz on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

“This area was a haunted place. It was a place that no one wanted to come to. Now the haunted place has become a place to work,” Mr Gaur says.

“Every year Barmer was asking for money – now it’s giving money to the government every day. People are lobbying the politicians to have jobs here.”

Mr Gaur, 38 years old and a former student of geology, had initially abandoned his career in the government for a job as the regional correspondent for The Hindustan Times, a national daily newspaper. Then he was headhunted by Cairn to become its local communications chief.

Remarkable transformations like these are to be found across India’s fast-growing economy, bringing more flexibility and earning potential to the country’s job market.
The biggest changes are in the service sector, which accounts for 55 per cent of gross domestic product and is a powerful source of new jobs. Sectors such as IT outsourcing have put a heavy emphasis on English language skills, as well as computer and internet skills. They have also created modern, clean office environments.
“Today, the entire landscape is changing, with 45 per cent of the new urban jobs being generated in the business-process outsourcing sector,” says K. Raghavendra, the vice-president of human resources at Infosys, the Bangalore-based information technology outsourcing company.

The industrial sector has some way to go to catch up. Yet this globalised dynamism is spreading to other areas, such as oil and gas, pharmaceuticals and the automotive industry, where all the large car makers, such as Ford and Fiat, are now present.

In a country emerging from a socialist past, the security of a government job is still prized. But young Indians are giving up careers in the state bureaucracy for opportunities and rising wages in the private sector.

Another powerful globalising influence derives from Indians working abroad, particularly in the Gulf and the US. Last year, India was the nation with the highest remittances (approximately $58bn). The economy of the southern state of Kerala, which has the highest literacy rate in India, is fuelled by foreign earnings.

Kapil Sibal, the country’s education minister, foresees a time when India, which has a population of 1.2bn people, will supply the workforce for the world, as migrants in service industries fill gaps in ageing societies in the west and Japan.

A young adaptable population, of which more than 60 per cent are under the age of 35, is an advantage, he says.

By 2025, India is expected to have the largest workforce in the world. But a big worry is whether India can provide the necessary skills for its growing economy. Wage inflation is already rising. Honda, the motorcycle maker, and Tata Consultancy Services, the IT services, consulting and business solutions company, are increasing wages by at least 10 per cent a year to hold on to skilled and semi-skilled workers.

Skills shortages are raising the cost base in an economy that has found global appeal through its low-cost labour. An engineer in India is about 10 times less expensive than his or her equivalent in Germany. An entry-level salary for a graduate coming into an IT outsourcing company in a big city is about 9,000 rupees ($180) a month. In a smaller city, the monthly wage is 4,000 rupees.

With about 13m entrants joining the workforce every year, the pressures to train them and create quality jobs is enormous.

An underpowered education system needs to supply graduates who can fill these new roles. According to experts, India produces the best from among its institutes of technology. The rest, however, rank among the worst.

Lant Pritchett, a professor of international development at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, says that while India produces an intellectual elite, it is also the world’s largest producer of unskilled people.

A recent report by Grant Thornton, the accounting firm, highlights the human-resources deficit.

“India still lags far behind the developed economies and many other emerging economies in terms of education and training,” the report says.

Manish Sabharwal, the chairman of Bangalore-based TeamLease, the country’s largest temporary staffing company, says these gaps need to be addressed urgently through an expansion of education and vocational training.

His research into labour trends shows huge disparities in employment, skills development and incomes. In particular, there are wide differences between India’s 28 states. Those with the greatest concentration of people, such as Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, offer the least opportunity.

Such imbalances make Indians a people on the move.

“A majority of the Indian globalised workforce in metro cities are from smaller towns,” says Harpreet Duggal, senior vice-president of Genpact, a business-processing company. “Understanding of the global business atmosphere is now far greater because of migration.”

Economic growth forecasts of 7 per cent for 2012 is attracting talent from abroad in a country more used to exporting its labour.

“Repatriation is increasing as people are retuning at all levels. The desire to leave the country has greatly subsided,” says Krishan Dhawan, former managing director of Oracle, the technology company, in India.

Although some are finding better-quality employment, for many Indians the job market has not changed. Most still find work in the agricultural sector, where casual labourers receive less than 100 rupees a day. This sector contributes 17 per cent of GDP, but accounts for the livelihood of more than 60 per cent of the population.
More than half the country’s workforce is self-employed. Only 15 per cent are regular wage earners or salaried employees.

At the other end of the spectrum lies IT outsourcing. It has altered expectations, behaviour and the gender balance among young people. Campuses belonging to India’s leading companies, such as Infosys or Wipro, resemble those of small US universities, complete with volleyball courts and Subway sandwich outlets.

Mr Dhawan says the nature of service-sector jobs has led to a non-discriminatory environment where some companies employ more women.

“The impact of globalisation is very high in the organisational hierarchy, especially at the mid-management level, as the percentage of male and female employees is roughly the same,” says Mr Duggal.

It has also shaken up the working day.

“Today, 40 per cent of our employees are women. Most of our work is not a day-shift job … traditionally, India has lost out as women don’t work night jobs,” says Mr Raghavendra.

Two-income households are becoming more common among India’s rising middle class as couples get used to a higher standard of living. Many more women are choosing to return to work after maternity leave.

Research by leading academic Alaka Basu shows the rise in single-child families as more women seek careers. Likewise, young workers are financing their further education themselves.

“The concept of a 9am to 5pm [government-type] job has been thrown out of the window. Today, you have to be a global citizen working 24/7, all the time,” adds Mr Raghavendra.

Source:http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2e56d512-4732-11e1-b847-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1kXEU3CkH

Indian software companies are bracing for a slower pace of outsourcing contracts in 2012 when they kick off quarterly earnings this week because of the lingering debt crisis in Europe, their biggest market after the United States.

Infosys Ltd, the country’s No.2 software services exporter, bigger rival Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and third-ranked Wipro Ltd get about three-quarters of their revenue from the United States and Europe.

“Right now the discretionary spend into the calendar year will be the key challenge to watch out, for the tech companies,” said Dhiraj Sachdev, a senior fund manager at HSBC Asset Management Ltd. “There is some kind of sense or early indication that sales cycles may lengthen.”

Global spending on information technology will rise at the slowest pace in three years in 2012 as Europeans, worried about the region’s sovereign debt crisis are cutting back on investments, research firm Gartner Inc said on January 5.

Gartner predicted global IT spending would rise 3.7 percent in 2012, down from its earlier estimate of 4.6 percent. The forecast for Western Europe was slashed to a 0.7 percent drop in spending from a previously expected rise of 3.4 percent.

Infosys is expected to report on Thursday a 30 percent profit rise for the December quarter, helped by an 8 percent slide in the rupee, but the market will be focusing on any revision in forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31, comments on demand momentum, hiring and acquisition plans.

HSBC’s Sachdev said the budget for technology spending by the financial services sector in Europe will be a decisive factor for Indian software companies, which compete with Accenture Plc and IBM Corp for contracts to maintain computer systems and write software applications.

Accenture posted strong quarterly results last month, but the technology outsourcing and consulting company gave a cautious view of the second quarter amid the worsening global economy.

The rupee was the worst performer among Asian currencies in 2011, losing nearly 16 percent against the dollar.

The weaker rupee may help Infosys gain about 295 basis points in margins for the December quarter, compared with July-September, while Wipro may gain 55 basis points, CLSA analysts said in a report.

“One percent depreciation in rupee (leads to) a net inflow of some 30 basis points in margins,” Infosys chief executive officer S.D. Shibulal told Reuters in an interview in November.

However, economic uncertainties are slowing decisions on technology spending by overseas companies, said Shibulal, who is also a co-founder of Bangalore-based Infosys, a pioneer in India’s nearly $76 billion IT services sector, said.

“We’re clearly seeing it. The slowness has increased in the last month or month and a half,” he said in November.

German and French leaders met on Monday to discuss how to boost growth in euro zone states struggling to tackle the sovereign debt crisis, amid growing market worries about the health of the global economy.

“We forecast net profit to grow faster than revenue for the top three vendors despite unfavourable cross-currency movements and hedging losses during the quarter,” said UBS analyst Diviya Nagarajan in a note, referring to the October-December quarter.

She has a “neutral” rating on Infosys and a “sell” rating on Tata Consultancy and Wipro.

Shares in Tata Consultancy dropped 0.4 percent and Infosys fell nearly 20 percent in 2011, compared to a nearly 16 percent drop in the sector index and roughly 25 percent loss in the main market index.

Infosys, which has a market value of nearly $31 billion, trades at 17.5 times its forward earnings, compared with nearly 19 times for Tata Consultancy and 15.5 times for Wipro, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.

Infosys’ operating margin at 28.2 percent for the three months ended September 30 was the highest among its local peers and ahead of IBM’s 19.8 percent with Tata Consultancy, which has recently seen its quarterly profit growing at a faster pace, at 27.1 percent, the data show.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/it-companies-q3-profit-seen-up-outlook-hazy/articleshow/11434865.cms?curpg=1

India today expressed concern over the proposed US Call Centre Bill but said that it is premature to assess the impact of the decision on the domestic IT industry.

A bipartisan bill has been tabled in the US House of Representatives to make companies, that move call centres overseas, ineligible for grants or guaranteed loans from the federal government, a move aimed at stemming the tide of jobs heading to nations like India.

“… Yes, it is something to be concerned about, yes, it is something to be worried about,” Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar told reporters here while releasing a report at the Assocham function here.

He, however, said that at this stage it would be premature to say anything on the possible impact of the proposed bill on the Indian industry.

Khullar said that the global economy is facing severe crisis and “you would continuously see such things quite simply because there is a real problem all over”.

The rate of unemployment is very high in several countries like the US, Spain and the UK, he said.

“Let me assure you that if it is happening in the US, something may happen in Spain tomorrow, in the UK tomorrow … then what you will do … you can not be consciously worried about reactions,” Khullar said.

IT industry body Nasscom has said that the proposed Bill would restrict free trade and establish discriminatory trade practices.

“It is indeed disappointing to see the US adopting ‘protectionist’ measures like these that restrict free trade and establish discriminatory trade practices. US lawmakers seem to have developed the practice of unfairly taxing companies working overseas, to pay for domestic issues,” Nasscom President Som Mittal has said yesterday.

The Bill by Representatives Tun Bishop and David McKinley also proposes a penalty of USD 10,000 per day on US call centres, for failing to report relocation to an offshore location, within 60 days to the US Department of Labour.

Also, call centre operators who answer calls will need to identify their location and the caller will have a choice of choosing a US-based operator.

According to Nasscom estimates, the BPO export segment is anticipated to grow by 14 per cent to reach USD 14.1 billion in FY 2011.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/us-bill-on-outsourcing-cause-of-concern-india/articleshow/11205753.cms

In the big business that comprises BPO, KPO and LPO, adding to the alphabet soup these days is ‘MPO’, which stands for marketing processing outsourcing. With several companies realising that outsourcing hastens, standardises and automates routine marketing, there’s a lot of work from the marketing domain being doled out.

Explaining the rationale for MPO, Vinod Harith, Founder, CMO Axis Outsourcing Services, says that instead of dealing with several firms – such as a Web design agency, an e-mail marketing agency, a database agency – it’s simpler for companies to deal with one agent that handles all these functions. Four years into this venture, the firm that claims to be India’s first MPO has set its sights on the bottom of the pyramid which it sees as a multibillion dollar opportunity. CMO Axis is betting on these small businesses to play a big role in its journey to a Rs 100-crore-in-billings target by 2015. As of March 2012, CMO Axis expects to achieve $1.5 million in billings, and $5 million by 2012-13.

“MPO is actually a subset of KPO (knowledge process outsourcing),” says Jessie Paul, CEO of Paul Writer Strategic Advisory, a marketing advisory firm. Paul, earlier CMO at Wipro, says Wipro too has an MPO business which targets large firms. Others in the business are the Champions Group, William Lea, and a few emerging smaller players from Coimbatore that promise to support a company’s marketing efforts and provide a greater and complete brand experience.

BIG-TICKET DEAL

According to Harith, the opportunity for MPO, in “very, very broad numbers,” is $8 billion in the US alone. In India, the opportunity can easily be 20-30 times that, with its 26 million and more small and medium businesses (SMBs). “There’s never going to be enough marketing managers for that many SMBs,” he says.

“The business may be small, but it needs the same kind of marketing ammunition big companies need because the goal is the same share of wallet.” MPO fills the gaps caused by lack of competence and capacity.

THE PROS AND CONS

Jessie Paul lists the advantages of MPO: The job is done whether someone comes to work or not; companies are saved the burden of investing in automation; savings in cost; flexibility for companies. Lack of control, says Paul, is a big disadvantage. On paper the MPO firm may claim it has all kinds of technologies and processes, but in reality, it may fall short.

Source:http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/marketing/article2735586.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home

Datamatics Global Services, a Global Information Technology (IT) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) organization, announced today that Ms. Divya Kumat, Vice President (Legal) and Company Secretary has won the “Women Leaders in India Awards 2011″. She was adjudged as the Leading Woman Company Secretary of the year 2011 in the 3rd edition of Women Leaders in India Awards, at a glittering award ceremony held at the Taj Mahal Palace, Colaba, Mumbai.

Ms. Kumat leads all legal and secretarial initiatives for Datamatics Group of companies. She has over 19 years of professional experience and has held progressively senior and leadership positions. She has been associated with Datamatics for more than 8 years.

On receiving the award, Ms. Divya Kumat said, “It is an honour to receive this award. As a part of Team Datamatics, I have always believed in the core values of transparency and corporate ethics, which also lay a robust foundation for sound corporate governance. The award therefore not only celebrates my personal achievements but also lays recognition to the highest standards of transparency and corporate governance at Datamatics. I would like to thank the jury members and the participants for recognising our efforts”.

Divya holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce (Honors), Bachelor of Law (LLB) degree and is a Gold Medalist in LLM with thesis in International Arbitration. She is a fellow member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (FCS) and Merit holder in ICSA, London.

Annual Women Leaders in India Awards ceremony celebrates the remarkable achievements of the successful women leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals. The event recognizes an exceptional leader who has played an important role in the specific sector and developments on various levels. This esteemed award, which is in its 3rd year, is based on various parameters like internal perception within the organization, credibility, achievements and value contribution to the business. This year the initiative hosted 200 Top Women from the Business, Professional and Political Arena.

Source:http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/information-technology/20111216106714.htm

India has had a significant dominance over the KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) sector for many years now. However, a recent report by analyst firm Ovum says that a number of KPO hubs have emerged in many Asia-Pacific countries during the last few years. These potential hubs include countries like China, Philippines and Sri Lanka.

“A major challenge facing life sciences companies is the growing cost of R&D and, as a result, a growing number of pharma companies are turning to outsourcing and off-shoring as ways of reducing these costs. China is an attractive location for companies that run and manage all phases of the clinical trial process, as it offers a significant pool of potential patients in an important emerging market,” says Ed Thomas, Analyst, Ovum.

Apart from China, Philippines also is emerging as a key player in the KPO sector. It has carved itself a niche market in various areas including healthcare outsourcing. This market is expected to grow at a great extent as there is a notable demand coming from the U.S. because of the recent reforms in the healthcare regulations.

Sri Lanka also has started concentrating on developing skills in various areas and sectors. The country is now rich of accountants who are capable of providing high end complex equity and credit research. This has enabled them to provide both offshore and nearshore delivery to the vendors providing them access to the sizeable and untapped talent pools.

Source:http://www.siliconindia.com/magazine_articles/Will_India_continue_to_dominate_the_KPO_sector-BQKS376701917.html

According to MyHiringClub.com’s World wide IT Salary 2011, IT salaries is yet to be seen with appraisals around the corner, but as of now India is ranked seventh on the ten worst IT paymasters globally.

MyHiringClub.com’s World wide IT Salary 2011 compared the total annual cash compensation and total remuneration information of mid career level for IT staff in 6,117 companies in 41 different countries.

India remains one of the most favourite outsourcing destinations due to this low cost factor, but the future might bring with itself a completely different scenario, a survey by Global Recruitment Tendering Platform MyHiringClub.com revealed.

Key Facts:-

* India has been identified in the 7th position in terms of the lowest paymasters for information technology (IT) managers.
* IT managers in Bulgaria, Vietnam and the Philippines receive the lowest pay at $21,678, $28,940 and $32,560 a year, respectively.
* The US ranks 5th with an average of $1,21,460 followed by the Ireland.
* Pay for Mid-Level IT employees highest in Switzerland globally, lowest in Bulgaria
* Asia dominates rankings of lowest payers
* Australia tops highest paid IT professionals in Asia Pacific, followed by Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Republic of Korea in fifth place

“The impact of outsourcing and off-shoring on IT roles in North America and Western Europe helps explain the pattern of global pay. Lower-level roles are being moved to regions where talent is cheaper. India continues to be amongst the leading destinations for IT development, given its cost advantage. However, salary inflation and talent shortage could emerge as major challenges in maintaining this position in future,” Rajesh Kumar, CEO, MyHiringClub.com said.

“However, there is an increasing evidence of India’s growing stature and presence in the high-end value chain, where cost advantages may not be the only drivers to future growth”, Kumar added.

While Indian IT managers stood seventh on the ten lowest paying countries with an average salary of $36,120, Bulgaria topped the list with a meagre average salary of $21,678, followed by Vietnam and Philippines averaging at $28,940 and $32,560 respectively.

The other countries on the list were Indonesia at fourth with average wages of $32,980, followed by Malaysia with earnings of $35,870, China ($37,300), Czech Republic ($41,00), and Argentina ($49,000).

Also, large pay gaps exist between the junior and senior career streams in India, Indonesia, Chile, Brazil and Vietnam, the ‘MyHiringClub.com IT Pay around the World’ survey said.

“Lower-level roles are being moved to regions where talent is cheaper; the jobs that remain in Western Europe and the United States may be fewer in number but are more demanding and complex roles. Among the lower-paying countries emphasis is mostly laid on the cash compensation aspect, in the West, companies have to be more creative to attract staff offering bonus schemes and other variable factors and as such the cash components do not vary dramatically,” Nancy Miller, COO, MyHiringClub.com US & UK Division said.

In terms of the best IT salaries paying countries’ Switzerland topped the list with an average annual remuneration of $1,67,890. The same job if taken in Belgium, second on the list, would pay $1,42,570, the survey said.

Denmark stood third in the best paid list with salary in the IT sector averaging at $1,32,430. The UK and US were ranked fourth and fifth on this list with average packages of $1,26,570 and $1,21,460 respectively.

Source:http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/other/20111125104649.htm

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We have in house-team of dedicated CAD drafters and drawing professionals who can deliver high-standard technical assistance coupled with cost-effective drafting services to your ongoing projects. Major benefits include 100% accurate drawings, Multi-editable CAD drawings in various formats (from any input like sketches, images, paper drawings, etc.), Huge savings in cost and faster turnaround time.

Source:http://www.industrytoday.co.uk/it/outsourcing-cad-drafting-services-to-india-drafting-services-at-low-cost/8034

Targeting the domestic business process outsourcing market in India, BPO services provider Vertex Customer Services is expanding its presence in the country The UK-based company, which acquired the Mumbai-based BPO firm Shell Transource last year, expects its Indian revenues to cross $100 million by 2013 from $25-35 million at present. Vertex has presence across 11 cities in India, including Chennai, Hyderabad, Noida, Bangalore and Kolkata. The company is also planning to open four more centres in the next 12 months.

“We entered the Indian market as a strategy of the parent company and to have a presence in the market where we operate. With the completion of Shell Transource acquisition, we will be able to double our revenues from the domestic business in India. As part of the strategy, we are opening newer centres across the country,” Keshav C Gaur, MD and CEO of Vertex Customer Services India Limited, said.

He said Vertex has already opened a facility in Bangalore and is planning to open a 400-seater facility in Kochi. With the Kochi centre, it would service clients from the four Southern states. The Bangalore centre, with a built-up area of 12,000 square feet has a capacity to accommodate 450 people. “We want to service our clients in all the Indian languages. So it is necessary to be present in the local markets,” added Gaur.
It is also planning to hire around 3,000 employees within a couple of months to support the expansion. In Hyderabad alone, the company plans to double its headcount to about 3,000 people from the present 1,500 in the next three months. Gaur said it would invest Rs 30-50 crore in the next two years for enhancing and building infrastructure. “When we acquired Shell Transource, we had a plan to take our India headcount to 20,000 by 2013 and cross revenues of $100 million,” Gaur added.

Vertex, which sees opportunities in BFSI, telecom and government sector in India, has been empanelled for Aadhar (UID) project in India. Gaur said, Indian domestic market was evolving and clients were looking for the consolidation of vendors. This would trigger a lot of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the domestic BPO space in the next 3-4 years.

“You will finally see about 8-10 major BPO services providers in the Indian market, instead of so many number of smaller players as seen now,” he added.

Some of the majors M&As in the BPO space in India include Intelenet’s acquisition of a majority stake in Spanco Telesystems, Serco’s acquisition of InfoVision Group, Aegis’ acquisition of Actionline.

According to a study by Nasscom, the total export BPO market opportunity is expected to reach $220-280 billion by 2012. It also said that the domestic BPO market provides an additional $15-20 billion opportunity for the industry by 2012.

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/bpo-firm-vertex-rampingindia-presence/456094/

Within some IT circles, Indian outsourcing firms have become the poster child for everything that’s wrong with globalization and the H-1B visa program.

But blaming a certain set of companies for taking advantage of business opportunities created by the American companies that use the services of these firms to lower their IT costs seems a little hypocritical. There’s no doubt that these Indian firms enjoy a cost advantage by primarily leveraging labor resources in India, but that’s not all that much different from all the manufacturing jobs that U.S. companies outsourced to China. Businesses shift work to where costs are lower unless other outside pressures are brought to bear.

According to HCL Technologies CEO Vineet Nayar, that’s exactly what’s starting to happen. At the company’s Global Meet 2011 conference this week, Nayar noted that the Indian outsourcing provider has created 1,200 jobs in the U.S. The company has been working in cooperation with local universities and state governments to ensure that there is a supply of IT talent for those projects. The reason for this, Nayar says, is that “socially responsible” companies in the U.S. want to make sure that IT work performed on their behalf is done in the U.S., so even though HCL Technologies is not sure how profitable these projects will ultimately prove to be, customer requirements are driving the company to invest more in U.S.-based IT talent. That effort, notes Nayar, is also part of a larger effort to have greater local presence in the U.S. market because HCL Technologies is getting involved in more complex projects that require more than just the availability of low-cost IT skills. In fact, the goal is to have 10,000 employees outside of India by 2015.

IT jobs are, of course, a hot-button issue. But Nayar says that between companies in the U.S. insisting that jobs be performed in the U.S., and the fact that more than half of all H-1B visa requests are being rejected, fundamental change in the way IT projects on a global basis are being managed is starting to take place.

Long term, the real question shouldn’t be so much about rolling back globalization as much as it should be about advancing the skills of the entire IT community in a way that promotes enough work for all concerned. But in the meantime, forces other than pure economics are starting to have an impact on where IT jobs are being distributed.

Source:http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/vizard/the-rise-of-socially-responsible-outsourcing/?cs=49109

India-based ICT and business process outsourcing company Wipro Technologies plans to set up a strategic delivery centre in South Africa that will create job opportunities for about 1 000 skilled professionals over the next three years.

Wipro currently has an office in Johannesburg, and has around over 500 employees, both onsite and offsite, servicing its clients in the region.

According to a statement this week, the company says it views South Africa as a market for potential growth and has created a special structure to drive global presence and business growth in the region.

“South Africa’s IT end-user spending, as a portion of real gross domestic product (GDP), will reach 8.6% in 2013,” said Wipro Technologies senior vice president Manoj Punja. “This positions the country at the upper-middle level of IT spender nations within emerging markets.”

High potential market for growth
The South African government has launched a number of initiatives to drive ICT sector growth and bolster the country’s position in the global economy.

South Africa’s IT spending is projected to increase from US$10.7-billion in 2011 to about $17.4-billion in 2015. The largest industries contributing to South Africa’s GDP include financial services, business services and manufacturing.

According to the statement, the company sees the region as a “high potential market for growth” and will help diversify its presence and portfolio, especially in the financial and telecommunications sector.

“Factors like the time zone advantage, language, cultural compatibility and skill access makes South Africa a favourable destination for the growth of business process outsourcing and IT services,” Punja said.

Gateway to EMEA region
The country is a gateway to other countries in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region and Wipro has built up significant traction in telecoms, financial services and oil and gas industries in Africa.
Its large talent pool with multi-lingual skills, proximity to the Middle East and Europe, and cultural and business understanding of the market in Africa is a huge benefit that Wipro is prepared to tap into.

“To tap the large pool of IT educated graduates, Wipro plans to initiate campus recruitment drives and establish training and skills development programs,” added Punja. “These recruits will then undergo a competency evaluation test and be deputed on projects accordingly.”

Source:http://www.southafrica.info/business/investing/wipro-151111.htm