Bharti Airtel has shortlisted three multinational firms and two home-grown IT majors for its billion-dollar-plus IT outsourcing contract in Africa, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told ET.

IBM, which currently handles Bharti’s IT in India and Sri Lanka, along with Hewlett Packard and Accenture are among the multinational vendors that have made it to the shortlist, while Wipro and Tech Mahindra are the Indian vendors in the running for what could be one of the largest IT deals spread across 15 geographies in Africa.

“Both Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services are no longer in the race,” said the person quoted earlier. Another executive with direct knowledge of the development said that IBM, which was considered as the front runner for the deal, was now facing stiff competition from the attractive terms and conditions offered by other IT firms in the fray. This executive, also added that business sense mandated that Bharti diversify its IT options as against putting all its ‘eggs in one basket’. Bharti executives did not comment.

In April-end Bharti Airtel had invited Request for Information or RFI to outsource operations worth over a billion dollars for African assets it acquired from Kuwait’s Zain Telecom, suggesting it is looking for better deals than those being offered by its existing partners. It is learnt that a number of IT firms had made presentations to Bharti Airtel’s management in response to its RFI.

Executives with leading IT firms who did not want to be named said that Bharti had issued a revised tender for its IT contract earlier this month because of reservations expressed by some vendors regarding a few terms and conditions, which they felt favoured the incumbent IBM. But, ET could not independently verify this.

While IBM already has IT deals with three large Indian telcos — Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone — Wipro has the deal for Aircel and Telenor, while Tech Mahindra has been roped in by Etisalat DB (Swan) to manage its IT requirements. HP and Accenture are yet to win any large deals from the Indian telecom players. All vendors are stepping up efforts to woo Bharti and win the deal.

Tech Mahindra, which already does some work for Zain, is learnt to have invited Sunil Mittal for a gala dinner it hosted for select customers before the FIFA finals, where Mahindra Satyam was one of the sponsors. HP is also learnt to have committed a lot of pre-sales expenditure.

“Though Bharti may want to de-risk its IT by giving it to a vendor other than IBM, it may find it hard to refuse IBM if it makes a compelling proposition. Bharti is highly leveraged and if IBM makes a good offer, which it can because Bharti’s India deal is very profitable for IBM, it may go with it,” said an executive from the IT industry, requesting anonymity.

Bharti Airtel’s 10-year deal with IBM was originally estimated to be worth $750 million but it has already crossed $3 billion, an industry executive with knowledge of the contract said. Bharti had also outsourced the IT needs for its Sri Lankan operations to the US-headquartered company. Riding on the success of its deal with Bharti, IBM signed similar outsourcing agreements with Vodafone and Idea Cellular worth $1.2 billion and $900 million, respectively, in 2008.

Last year, IBM signed a similar deal with Malaysia’s Maxis to manage its IT operations.

Another executive said that Bharti Airtel may explore the option of having different IT vendors for its divisions in Africa.

These divisions include Bharti Anglophone (comprising of the English speaking nations), Bharti Francophone (comprising of the French speaking nations) and Nigeria.

Outsourcing all key operational functions, a concept pioneered by Bharti Airtel, is the key to its low-cost-high-usage business model that has enabled the telco to build a base of over 135 million customers in India and emerge as the country’s largest operator by both customers and revenues. Replicating this outsourced model of operations in Africa will be the key to returning Zain to profitability.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/ITeS/IBM-HP-Accenture-Wipro–Tech-Mahindra-in-race-for-billion-dollar-plus-outsourcing-contract/articleshow/6203166.cms?curpg=1

Mahindra Satyam, the new brand identity of Satyam Computer Services, said on Wednesday that its business process outsourcing (BPO) unit has entered into a partnership with Africa’s Direct Channel Holding Ltd, a contact centre and BPO company.

The newly formed alliance allows Johannesburg-based Direct Channel Holding, which has centres in Durban, Cape Town, Nairobi and Lagos, to extend its service offerings to its extensive domestic customer base, said a press release.

Direct Channel’s extensive operational experience in Sub-Saharan Africa, coupled with the Mahindra Satyam BPO domain expertise makes for a powerful combination,” said Suleman Shaik, CEO of Direct Channel.

“This step-of extending our global delivery footprint will offer our customer the option of multiple delivery locations,” said Mahindra Satyam BPO chief executive officer Vijay Rangineni.

Satyam also said that it is considering South Africa as an alternate center to offer back-office operations for its clients in Africa.

Source:http://www.ciol.com/News/BPO/News-Reports/Satyam-BPO-partners-with-Africas-Direct-Channel/138360/0/

Mahindra Satyam, formerly Satyam Computer Services, today said its business process outsourcing unit has entered into a partnership with Africa’s Direct Channel Holding Ltd.

The financial terms of the partnership were not announced.

Under the alliance, Mahindra Satyam BPO will help Direct Channel Holding expand its services in Africa, the company said in a statement.

Direct Channel Holding, a Johannesburg-based BPO, has centres in Durban, Cape Town, Nairobi and Lagos.

“This step-of extending our global delivery footprint will offer our customer the option of multiple delivery locations,” Mahindra Satyam BPO Chief Executive Officer Vijay Rangineni said.

In turn, Mahindra Satyam BPO plans to extend its service offerings to its global client base, who already have operations in Africa or are considering Africa as an alternate delivery centre, he added.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/software/Mahindra-Satyam-inks-deal-with-Africas-Direct-Channel-Holding/articleshow/6112108.cms

The board of Mahindra Satyam is believed to have given its back-office unit in-principle approval to build platform-based BPO capabilities through acquisitions.

This marks a significant turnaround in the script of the former Satyam Computer Services which was on the verge of being consigned to the archives last year. Today, the strategy is clearly focused on making up for lost ground and time.

If it gets the ‘right fit’, Mahindra Satyam BPO, or the erstwhile Nipuna, may go for up to three acquisitions in the $50-100 million range, sources said.

Mr Vijay Rangineni, CEO of Mahindra Satyam BPO, told Business Line, “We are being choosy about how we want to establish the platform-based practice. The company is open to both organic and inorganic routes to establish a platform BPO practice which could be used to deliver services to customers using the cloud.”

If the IT outsourcer gets the right target, it may not wait for the company’s restated accounts to be made available, sources said.

BPOs generally use customers’ existing technology platforms to deliver process outsourcing services. However, in a platform-based BPO, both the technology platform and service is provided by the vendor.

In other words, the platform BPO is the bundling of IT, BPO and consulting which means client companies incur minimal upfront investment. It also allows them to deal with their vendor on a ‘pay-per-use’ basis.

In the last year or so, all the top six IT companies have been making significant strides in this direction even as Mahindra Satyam was reeling under the impact of Mr Ramalinga Raju’s accounting scam.

Mr Sudin Apte, Principal Analyst of research firm, Forrester, had articulated this issue in a recent report. “This preoccupation with survival issues coupled with limited cash on hand is preventing the firm from investing in next-gen IT services capabilities such as developing IP-based solutions, ramping up onshore and near-shore delivery centres, building platform-based managed services, and launching new SaaS or cloud-based offerings,” he had said.

“While Mahindra Satyam was fighting to survive for past year, its peers in the industry, especially top firms like Cognizant, HCL, Infosys, TCS, and Wipro were investing in building these new capabilities,” Mr Apte added.

Mahindra Satyam’s BPO was one of the biggest loss-making centres at the time and was dropping around Rs 4-5 crore every month, sources said. While its current financial health can only be known till the accounts restatement exercise is complete, Mr Rangineni says the profitability horizon ‘looks much more encouraging.’

Source:http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/06/25/stories/2010062553100700.htm

Shares in Mahindra Satyam jumped as much as 11 percent to their highest in more than a month on Wednesday on speculation the Indian software services exporter will post strong revised earnings.

The company, earlier known as Satyam Computer Services, was acquired by Tech Mahindra in April last year after the company was hammered by India’s biggest corporate fraud, which came to light in January 2009. Last week, Mahindra Satyam said it had sought time till Sept. 30 from authorities to file financial statements relating to fiscal years 2008 and 2009.

The company law board had earlier set June 30 as the deadline for the filings. “There is some speculation in the market about the company coming out with its revised numbers sooner than the September deadline and the numbers are expected to be quite positive,” said a sector analyst with a domestic brokerage firm.

“With the overall Indian outsourcing sector looking up and the deal flow rising, Satyam could also see some new client wins in the near term,” said the analyst, who refused to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Last month, Mahindra Satyam said it had won a five-year contract from GlaxoSmithKline that followed a four-year, $48 million outsourcing contract secured from Denmark-based technology firm KMD.

Mahindra Satyam shares were trading up 8.5 percent at Rs 92.45 ($2) by noon (0630 GMT), after having risen as much as 11.3 percent earlier in the day to its highest level since May 4. The shares were the most traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange with 12.6 million shares, roughly 9 times their 30-day average, changing hands.

Shares in Tech Mahindra, a unit of tractor and utility vehicles maker Mahindra & Mahindra, was trading 3.6 percent higher at Rs 743.75, having earlier risen as much as 4.4 percent.

Source:http://www.mydigitalfc.com/it/mahindra-satyam-shares-rally-earnings-hopes-473

Satyam Computer Services Ltd, or Mahindra Satyam, on Tuesday said it has won a three-year outsourcing contract from BASF IT Services, a subsidiary of German chemicals company BASF SE.

Satyam did not give the financial terms of the deal but a company official, on condition of anonymity, said it was a mid-size contract awarded after a competitive bidding that included Accenture Plc. and Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Satyam will enhance BASF’s capacity to provide managed services for its installed base of SAP, messaging and groupware, as well as user administration, the company said in a statement.

The deal is outcome-oriented and can be extended twice for a year each, it added.

Although big-ticket contracts still elude Satyam, hit by a multi-crore accounting fraud, it has won six mid-size deals in the past six months and has retained nearly all its clientele after its April 2009 acquisition by Tech Mahindra Ltd, the IT arm of the Mahindra and Mahindra group.

Source:http://www.livemint.com/2010/05/04232712/Mahindra-Satyam-wins-midsize.html?h=B

Mahindra Satyam, the erstwhile Satyam Computer Services, today said it had signed a four-year offshore contract with KMD, a Denmark-based information technology company, for $48 million (about Rs 218 crore).

The new contract, an extension of a previous contract due to expire this year, would end in December 2013.

“We view this significant contract award as a great endorsement of the quality of work we have already delivered and a real testament to the success of the partnership that has developed between the two companies. We look forward with anticipation to the next phase of this relationship,” CEO C P Gurnani said in a statement.

“About 200 associates will be engaged to offer offshore work from our development centre in Bangalore,” a top Satyam official told Business Standard. Mahindra Satyam employs around 4,000 professional in Bangalore.

The new contract involves stronger partnership and multi-fold increase in business commitment. The scope of application development work covered will primarily include SAP, as well as other technologies such as Mainframe applications, .Net, Java, BizTalk, WebLogic, PL/1, Sharepoint and MQ Series.

Satyam stocks rose 0.10 per cent to end at Rs 98.20 on the BSE today.

Source:http://sify.com/finance/mahindra-satyam-signs-48-mn-pact-with-danish-firm-news-technology-kdmb4hbfjeb.html

Mahindra Satyam, an Indian IT services provider, said on Thursday it had won a four-year outsourcing contract worth $48 million from Denmark-based technology firm KMD.

The new contract is an extension of a previous deal from KMD that was due to expire this year, the company said.

Source:http://sify.com/news/mahindra-satyam-wins-48mln-deal-from-denmark-firm-news-others-kdlsOleacdb.html

When B. Ramalinga Raju confessed to India’s biggest corporate fraud on January 7 last year, most people thought the scandal would be fatal to Satyam Computer Services, the apparently hugely successful outsourcing company he had founded.

Yet, nearly a year later, the company survives — albeit with its name alongside that of the tractors-to-software Mahindra group, the white knight that saved it — in the form of Mahindra Satyam.

One sign that India’s fourth-largest information technology outsourcing company has weathered the storm is that it remains the IT vendor for Fifa’s World Cup in South Africa and the name Satyam remains as a sponsor on the international football body’s website.

The notoriety of the start of the year appears to have diminished too. “We did a formal survey of [the name] and we found that people in their minds have dissociated Satyam [from] its founder,” says Chander Prakash Gurnani, chief executive of Mahindra Satyam, speaking by phone while on the road in Delhi. Travel has been a big part of his life since moving from his post as head of international operations at Tech Mahindra, a joint venture with British Telecom.

Satyam’s retention of customers of Fifa’s standing is just one aspect of what must be one of the world’s most surprising corporate survival stories. In April, Satyam became one of the first big companies in Indian corporate history to be sold without any certified financial accounts.

Challenges

While serious challenges remain — including the forthcoming results of a forensic audit, Raju’s trial for fraud, and class action lawsuits in the US from investors in its Nasdaq-listed stock — its future as a going concern looks transformed from 11 months ago. It has even increased its client numbers.

What started as a potentially lethal development — not just for Satyam but for India’s multibillion-dollar IT industry, whose existence relies on foreign clients trusting its integrity — has also become a case study of successful government and private sector co-operation in India to solve a crisis.

The Satyam scandal began when Raju told his board by letter he had been falsifying revenue and profits for about six years to create a fictitious cash balance of $1 billion (Dh 3.67 billion). He described the fraud, which he claimed was perpetrated merely to hide poor performance, as like “riding a tiger” — hard to get off without being eaten.

The ramifications spread. Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, realised the news could threaten international confidence in the nation’s outsourcing industry, which handles vital computer systems and business processes of huge numbers of customers half a world away. That presented a potential disaster for Singh’s Congress party-led ruling coalition, which was preparing for a general election in May.

Singh raised the issue in cabinet and replaced Satyam’s board with leading Indian businessmen, including banker Deepak Parekh and Kiran Karnik, former head of Nasscom, the IT industry association, who was appointed chairman of the caretaker board.

On a Sunday morning, days after Raju’s letter, Karnik was asked to join the board, and at 10.30pm met his fellow directors. “The first day, I felt like I was part of a bomb disposal squad, which was sent in not knowing too much about bombs and then deciding whether to cut the red wire or the white wire,” he says.

They hired KPMG and Deloitte to start the long task of restating the accounts, which is expected to be completed in the first half of 2010. Next they set about putting out fires.

Bank loans

If employees were not paid, they would desert the company, so the board appealed to clients to pay receivables early and arranged bank loans. They had to decide quickly which managers to trust. Few beyond Raju’s closest circle seem to have been involved.

Karnik appealed to employees’ courage in the face of adversity. “I said, ‘Look, this is a scam, it’s a huge scam — but it’s not a Satyam scam, as people say, it’s a Raju scam’.”

To reassure clients, the board offered to help them switch to another vendor if they were not satisfied with service levels, but most stayed. Raju had, ironically, developed some of the highest service standards in the sector.

The board also set out to sell Satyam to a reputable owner within 100 days in order to pre-empt defections by clients, most of whom had a 90-day cancellation clause in their contracts. Goldman Sachs volunteered to arrange the sale.

Tech Mahindra was an early bidder. Gurnani, who was chosen to take over at Satyam because of his industry experience, especially in mergers and acquisitions, says Mahindra had been considering a takeover before the scandal. It beat rival Indian bidder Larsen & Toubro and US investment company Wilbur Ross, with a bid worth $585 million.

Healing wounds

Gurnani has focused on healing wounds. Some big clients defected, but since the sale Satyam has lost three clients and added 35, to bring the total to 380. It is “cash flow positive”, he says, though he declines to reveal further figures until the accounts are restated.

To re-engage the young workforce, he has ap-pointed a nine-strong “shadow board” of employees to whom he “reports” every month. “I am not the CEO, I’m the chief happiness officer,” he says. He tells his staff: “I understand the [scarring] you’ve gone through. Let’s work together to redefine happiness.”

The scars, however, remain raw. Raju had hired thousands of surplus staff and in December 8,500 were laid off. The workforce of about 50,000 in January last year has since dropped to “30,000-plus”, says Gurnani.

Satyam faces further knocks when Raju comes to trial, although the date remains uncertain. He and nine other suspects in the case are mouldering in jail, including two PwC auditors who have yet to be charged.

For Gurnani, the task is to remove the last traces of Raju’s legacy from the Satyam name. The former chairman’s plush penthouse suite at Satyam’s offices remains as he left it, unoccupied and unchanged. “It is known as ‘Raju’s room’ and no one sits in that room. Once we increase sales, we will probably convert it into a software development centre and make it productive,” Gurnani says. Then, perhaps, Satyam will be purged of the Raju legacy.

Source:- http://gulfnews.com/business/technology/mahindra-phases-out-raju-legacy-1.560875

Mahindra Satyam said on Wednesday its board had approved a settlement agreement under which it will make total payments of $70 million to Upaid Systems Ltd.

The Indian outsourcing company, formerly known as Satyam Computer Services, said it would make a first payment of $45 million within 10 days of getting regulatory approval of the settlement.

A second payment of $25 million would be made within a year of the first payment, the company said in a statement.

The settlement requires Upaid to give Mahindra Satyam a worldwide royalty-free licence on its patents, and provides for the dismissal of all pending actions between parties.

Source : http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Mahindra+Satyam,+Upaid+settlement+approved&artid=2vy3XxxTsFE=&SectionID=XT7e3Zkr/lw=&MainSectionID=XT7e3Zkr/lw=&SectionName=HFdYSiSIflu29kcfsoAfeg==&SEO=

The Kolkata operation of Tech Mahindra (TechM), the telecom software arm of the Mahindra Group, is picking up steam. The company’s 1,000-member Kolkata team has just been asked to execute a string of mega telecom outsourcing contracts for South Africa’s MTN, UAE’s Etisalat and Saudi Telecom, a senior official familiar with the matter told ET.

Not only is TechM developing advanced business intelligence solutions for MTN’s Nigerian operation out of Kolkata, it is also doing a sizeable chunk of the systems integration work for Etisalat and Saudi Telecom’s greenfield rollouts in India and Bahrain, respectively.

“Since the rollout of any greenfield mobile network involves installation of diverse network equipment and business support systems procured from multiple vendors, systems integration is a critical exercise. That is what Tech Mahindra is doing for Etisalat and Saudi Telecom through its delivery centres like the one in Kolkata,” said a source close to developments.

Mum’s the word at Tech Mahindra on the Etisalat, Saudi Telecom and MTN outsourcing deals being implemented by the Kolkata team. In response to ET’s email query on the details of these contracts, a Tech Mahindra spokesman wrote back: “As a company policy, we do not comment on client information or market speculation.”

Be that as it may, the latest developments come at a time when Tech Mahindra is ramping up its Kolkata operation in a big way. Indications are that the company’s upcoming 12-acre campus in the Bantala IT SEZ in the city’s eastern fringes will house the operations of its IT/telecom software development delivery centre and its BPO unit. Close to 2,000 IT professionals will initially work at this campus that is slated to become operational by December 2010. Once fully ramped up, it will be equipped to hold close to 4000 professionals.

At present, Tech Mahindra’s IT services and BPO operations happen out of separate facilities in the city. What is, however, not known is whether its Bantala SEZ will also house the city operations of Mahindra Satyam. Tech Mahindra recently surrendered the 2.77-acre plot that was alloted by the West Bengal government to Satyam Computers for a software development facility at Salt Lake Sector V, which never happened.

“Tech Mahindra, which now owns Satyam Computer, has decided to surrender the 2.77-acre plot as it says it is setting up a brand new IT campus at the Bantala IT SEZ. We have no information at this stage whether the campus will also include the offices of Mahindra Satyam,” said a senior official in the state IT department.

Source : http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2714041/

Things are looking rosy at Mahindra Satyam. The IT services firm is fast converting its virtual pool of employees into real billable force, and has also brought back performance rewards and appraisals.

“The demand surge is indeed there. That is the reason we have planned to take 200 people every month from the current virtual pool of 4,400 employees in the next quarter and similar number in Q1 of FY11 as well,” a source in Mahindra Satyam said on the condition of anonymity.

The company has already taken about 1,800 people from the pool in the ongoing third quarter.

In June, the company announced a “virtual pool” programme under which employees who had not been working on any outsourcing project for three months were sent home for up to six months on a reduced salary structure to cut costs.

The company has also brought back variable pay, rewards and performance appraisals, and introduced associate stock option plans for senior- and mid-level employees. However, the actual increase in utilisation of people at Mahindra Satyam could not be ascertained.

“There is no clear number on actual growth in utilisation. But definitely there is increase in incremental billing by as much as 65%,” the source said.

In a December 2 note to clients, J P Morgan Asia Pacific Equity Research analyst Manoj Singla wrote, “Business at Satyam is seeing incremental stability as per recent management comments with new contracts being closed, no significant attrition of customers and pricing stable.”

“Mahindra Satyam has added about 36 clients since July and currently has about 420 customers,” Atul Kunwar, president, global operations, Mahindra Satyam said recently. The demand increase is more prominent in areas such as manufacturing and digital convergence, and healthcare and life sciences.

Mahindra Satyam currently has about 35,000 employees, and the firm looks to complete the restatement of its accounts before the deadline of June 30, 2010. Mahindra Satyam shares closed at Rs 101.3 on the BSE on Tuesday, up 3.53% over the previous close.

Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_mahindra-satyam-to-induct-200-every-month-from-virtual-pool_1321622

The Kolkata operation of Tech Mahindra (TechM), the telecom software arm of the Mahindra Group, is picking up steam. The company’s 1,000-member Kolkata team has just been asked to execute a string of mega telecom outsourcing contracts for South Africa’s MTN, UAE’s Etisalat and Saudi Telecom, a senior official familiar with the matter told ET.

Not only is TechM developing advanced business intelligence solutions for MTN’s Nigerian operation out of Kolkata, it is also doing a sizeable chunk of the systems integration work for Etisalat and Saudi Telecom’s greenfield rollouts in India and Bahrain, respectively.

“Since the rollout of any greenfield mobile network involves installation of diverse network equipment and business support systems procured from multiple vendors, systems integration is a critical exercise. That is what Tech Mahindra is doing for Etisalat and Saudi Telecom through its delivery centres like the one in Kolkata,” said a source close to developments.

Mum’s the word at Tech Mahindra on the Etisalat, Saudi Telecom and MTN outsourcing deals being implemented by the Kolkata team. In response to ET’s email query on the details of these contracts, a Tech Mahindra spokesman wrote back: “As a company policy, we do not comment on client information or market speculation.”

Be that as it may, the latest developments come at a time when Tech Mahindra is ramping up its Kolkata operation in a big way. Indications are that the company’s upcoming 12-acre campus in the Bantala IT SEZ in the city’s eastern fringes will house the operations of its IT/telecom software development delivery centre and its BPO unit. Close to 2,000 IT professionals will initially work at this campus that is slated to become operational by December 2010. Once fully ramped up, it will be equipped to hold close to 4000 professionals.

At present, Tech Mahindra’s IT services and BPO operations happen out of separate facilities in the city. What is, however, not known is whether its Bantala SEZ will also house the city operations of Mahindra Satyam. Tech Mahindra recently surrendered the 2.77-acre plot that was alloted by the West Bengal government to Satyam Computers for a software development facility at Salt Lake Sector V, which never happened.

“Tech Mahindra, which now owns Satyam Computer, has decided to surrender the 2.77-acre plot as it says it is setting up a brand new IT campus at the Bantala IT SEZ. We have no information at this stage whether the campus will also include the offices of Mahindra Satyam,” said a senior official in the state IT department.

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/ites/Tech-Mahindra-to-execute-contracts-for-MTN-Etisalat/articleshow/5308975.cms

Mahindra Satyam has won a Rs 100-crore ($20 million) outsourcing contract from the world’s largest maker of commerical aircraft, Sources said the three-year contract involving technology maintenance, will put Satyam at a vantage point as they can now have an overview of the projects and technology which controls the organisation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5301500.cms

Indian outsourcer Tech Mahindra is considering a new business process outsourcing operation in the Philippines, the Economic Times reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed source.

An affiliate of utility vehicles maker Mahindra & Mahindra, the outsourcer already has offshore centres in Ireland and the UK. A Tech Mahindra spokesman did not respond to phone calls for comment.

Source : http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_tech-mahindra-to-consider-bpo-unit-in-philippines-report_1319103