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Posts Tagged ‘Tech’

Tech Mahindra to focus on West Asia, Africa operations

December 16th, 2011

Tech Mahindra will be rolling out a wider range of services for the MEA region’s telco providers

Tech Mahindra, the IT arm of the Mahindra & Mahindra Group, is looking to expand its reach in the West Asia and Africa (MEA) region by tapping into newer markets and industry verticals, as well as forge new strategic partnerships with key businesses, to drive revenues.

Toward this objective, the systems integrator and business transformation consulting organisation has said it will reinforce its leadership and focus across operations in the region. In line with this move, Tech Mahindra recently appointed Girish Bhat as the new vice-president of sales and operations for MEA region. He is expected to drive business and synergies for the company.

The increasing popularity of business process outsourcing (BPO) and security solutions has made these areas new focal points for growth across the MEA region.

Tech Mahindra announced that it will be rolling out a wider range of services for the MEA region’s telco providers, adding new offerings like value-added services (VAS), BPO, e-security, infrastructure management and network services.

“As the whole MEA region moves toward recovering from the impact left by the recent economic downturn, local telco providers have demonstrated a key shift in their IT spending practices, revealing a concentration on acquiring turnkey outsourcing of applications across the business support services (BSS)/operations support services (OSS) segments,” said Bhat.

Bhat has more than 22 years of industry experience that spans diverse geographies. Prior to his new position, he served as the head of the Africa region at Tech Mahindra, where his leadership skills and strong business acumen were instrumental in strengthening the company’s business in the continent.

In the late afternoon, Tech Mahindra was trading at around Rs575 per share on the Bombay Stock Exchange, 3.65% up from the previous close.

Source:http://www.moneylife.in/article/tech-mahindra-to-focus-on-west-asia-africa-operations/22214.html

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Tags: Africa Asia Mahindra Tech

Enterprise Value Index for Tech Services Released

December 9th, 2011

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Advisors today released the MW Index®, the first-ever Index measuring enterprise Relevant Products/Services value of technology services companies. The Index reveals that SaaS Relevant Products/Services companies have increased in value by 313% since January 2009, more than double the growth in value of other tech services sectors and outpacing the NASDAQ average growth rate of 168%.

The MW Index is a proprietary analysis by martinwolf, a leading middle market IT Relevant Products/Services M&A advisory. The MW Index is an index whose securities are weighted according to the market value of their outstanding shares. It measures 120 companies traded in the U.S. stock markets (NYSE, NASDAQ and OTC) in the following categories:

• IT Services & Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) – 52 companies, including 7 in BPO
• IT Supply Chain Services – 23 companies
• Software – 45 companies, including 20 in SaaS

The MW Index starts on December 31, 2007 with a value of 1,000. All companies in the Index are on Scoreboard (see: http://martinwolf.com/mw-intelligence).

According to the Index, the January 1, 2009 versus October 31, 2011 enterprise values in each sector were as follows:

•IT Services & BPO +150% growth — (from 708.02 to 1062.45)
•IT Supply Chain +142% growth — (from 559.68 to 793.97)
•Software +154% growth — (from 663.10 to 1021.92)
•SaaS +313% growth — (from 465.97 to 1459.29)

•NASDAQ (actual) +168% growth (from 1540.25 to 2592.41)

According to Marty Wolf, president & founder of martinwolf, “For the next 24 months we expect SaaS companies to continue to increase in value. Growth for SaaS companies in specialized services such as financial services and healthcare will be especially strong. In addition, the growth of specialized SaaS offerings such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) will outpace SaaS growth in the same period.

Source:http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Index-of-Enterprise-Value-Released/story.xhtml?story_id=020000CLGA88

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Tags: Services Tech

Tech Mahindra, Spanco plans to expand Nigerian call centres

October 6th, 2011

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Tech Mahindra and Spanco today denied reports of mass job cuts at their Nigerian call centres, which manage services for Airtel, and said they plan to expand outsourcing operations in the African country.
The Nigerian media had reported that Tech Mahindra and Spanco were planning to retrench 50% of the call center agents as part of cost-cutting measures.
The media reports had led to widespread protests by agents, following which the IT companies had to close their call centres on September 30.
The two IT companies in a joint statement said, “There is no issue of mass sack but expiration of existing contracts. Prior to the expiration of the contracts, we had engaged representatives of the Agents and that of the organised Labour on how to manage their transition to our roll.”
“Due to a lack of consensus on the way forward and an apparent threat to our facilities by some of the agents, we were compelled to suspend operations at the call centres last Friday, September 30, 2011.”
Sources said Airtel operations were not affected with the development.
Airtel had entered into an agreement with Tech Mahindra and Spanco in October last year for outsourcing of core customer service functions of African operations. Airtel currently has over 40 million customers across its African countries.
Tech Mahindra and Sapnco said they jointly inherited over 1,600 Call Centre agents from Bezaleel, HR Index and CCSNL who hitherto provided agents for the company known then as Zain.
The contract existing between Indian companies and two of the agencies namely CCSNL and HR Index expired effective Friday September 30, 2011. The third agency, Bezaleel’s, contract will expire in January 2012.
The statement further said the companies have plans to recruit new agents and also offer some of the affected agents a new contract with attendant salaries and benefits based on their qualifications and experience.
“Our vision is to expand the Call Centre business in Nigeria to 5000 capacity, ultimately. On the issue of salaries, we state categorically that as world class organizations, we offer our employees remuneration and benefits comparable to standards across the world and in compliance with the working and labour laws of Nigeria,” the call center operators said.

Source:http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/tech-mahindra-spanco-plans-to-expand-nigerian-call-centres_594581.html

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Tags: Mahindra Tech

Tech Mahindra posts 15.4% increase in global revenue for Q1 2011

August 15th, 2011

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Tech Mahindra, an IT outsourcing company offering web development, Offshore development, application development, software development and is part of the Mahindra Group, has released the consolidated financial results for its first quarter ending June 30, 2011, revealing a 15.4% Year-on-Year (YoY) growth in global revenue.

The report shows that revenue for the first quarter reached $289.8m, up by a 4.1% Quarter-on-Quarter (QoQ) growth. The company has also revealed some new wins during the first quarter for the Middle East and African (MEA) regions. With multiple projects underway across the Middle East, Tech Mahindra is enjoying penetration levels in GCC countries exceeding 100%. Operators are currently seized with the issue of controlling costs, increasing revenues and sweating assets. Tech Mahindra aims at addressing these issues by enabling businesses to focus on core business and handle key functions like IT and networks. Present trends also show an increased focus on market segmentation and customer loyalty.

In the Middle East region, Tech Mahindra has strong relationships with all operators and the company plans to focus on expanding its footprint in Saudi Arabia and are investing in efforts to make that happen. While Tech Mahindra has successfully done projects in the IT space covering OSS, BSS, ERP, EAI etc, the strategy is to offer a broader range of services to operators covering VAS, BPO, e-Security, Infrastructure Management Services and Network Services also to customers and prospects in the Middle East.

Some of the company’s offerings can be leveraged across key industry verticals. One that offers itself immediately is e-Security, where it has already started working with a leading bank in Dubai. In addition, software testing and infra services are areas where the company plans to use the Mahindra Satyam customer or prospect base to seek revenue streams. Also, with the recent contracts around Managed Services, Tech Mahindra has positioned resources and also hired resources locally. BPO and Security are new areas of growth in addition to systems integration work and managed services.

“Middle East and Africa are clearly the emerging markets that are crucial for our growth,” said Krishna Gopal, Vice President, MEA – Sales, Tech Mahindra. “These markets offer us the opportunity to develop and showcase some of our high end capabilities in terms of consulting, system integration and managed services. Our wins and healthy ongoing traction bears testimony to our growth momentum in the region and we will continue to leverage the same.”

Tech Mahindra also reported that revenue, in terms of a constant currency basis, came to $284.1m, which increased by 2% QoQ. The company’s operating profit was $54.1m and showed an increase of 16.6% YoY. Profit After Tax (PAT) was $61.7m, driving in a 96.3% YoY increase and a 203.6% QoQ. Tech Mahindra has also posted a total head count of 42,850 with 27,920 software professionals, 13,804 BPO employees and a support staff of 1,126. The company added 4,517 personnel during the first quarter, where 2,793 were in BPO.

“We continue to build our business portfolio at a measured pace, despite low discretionary spend in the telecom vertical. This has been enabled by our diversification into new geographies and customers,” said Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Tech Mahindra.

Other developments during the first quarter include the announcement of Nigeria as the headquarters for Tech Mahindra’s BPO operations in Africa with operations already commencing in Gabon. Also, the company has been selected by Microsoft to set up an authorized Encoder Conformance Testing Lab (ECT Lab) for video encoders used in deployment of IPTV solutions on Microsoft Media room based platforms.

“We have aligned ourselves with changing customer priorities and needs, which has helped us navigate in these volatile times. Our continued focus on core competencies has enabled us to show sustained growth across our key clients and geographies. The changing macro economic conditions could pose new challenges, which we are closely monitoring,” concluded Vineet Nayyar, Vice Chairman, MD and CEO of Tech Mahindra.

Source:http://www.ameinfo.com/273008.html

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Tags: IT Mahindra Outsourcing Tech

Tech Mahindra starts BPO operations in the Philippines

May 3rd, 2011

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Tech Mahindra wins multi-million dollar BPO business in the Philippines, will also expand its footprint in Africa

Tech Mahindra, India’s fifth largest software exporter has announced its plans to set up BPO operations in the Philippines. The company has recently signed a multi-million dollar deal, as one of the preferred BPO partners for strategic outsourcing with a leading full-service telecommunications company in the Philippines, according to a company release. The deal is spread over a period of three years. Tech Mahindra will provide the client with contact centre support for sales and back office, customer care and technical support for their wireless post-paid, landline and broadband customers. The end-customer mix will include both retail as well as high-end business customers of the client. Tech Mahindra has set up the contact centre at Manila to enable and deliver these services to the client and has already recruited over 600 associates locally. The past year saw Tech Mahindra opening centres in Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, Ghana and Gabon, while Congo DRC and Congo B are expected to start operations within the next few months. According to Sujit Baksi, president-corporate affairs & BPO, Tech Mahindra, “The Philippines is not only a key market for us, but also a strategic location from where we plan to service our global clients. We look forward to strengthening our presence in Philippines through our engagement with one of the leading players in the Philippines telecom industry and will actively support our client’s innovative plans to address the mobile telephony and broadband services market.” At 15:59 hours, Tech Mahindra was trading Rs670.25 (2.5%) down on the BSE. The Sensex was 463.33 points down at 18,534.69 at this time.

Source:http://www.moneylife.in/article/tech-mahindra-starts-bpo-operations-in-the-philippines/16075.html

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Tech savvy NZ perfect for freelance expansion

September 27th, 2010

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New Zealand is the ideal country to expand the global outsourcing website freelancer.com, its chief executive says.

The Sydney-based company is launching a New Zealand version of its site and Matt Barrie said it’s a “great place to kick off” its global expansion because New Zealanders have a global perspective.

“New Zealand is the land of the small business,” he told NZI Business today.

Barrie said NZ is geographically remote but is “very technologically savvy” and New Zealanders are “renowned as early adopters”.

Freelancer claims to already connect over 1.8 million employers with freelance workers from around the world and Barrie said it is about outsourcing work at a fraction of the cost paid locally.

It’s a bit like Trade Me, he says, with small businesses looking to place small jobs from $30 to $200.

He explained a job is posted and freelancers around the world are notified within seconds – about 30 to 40 people usually bid.

Barrie says freelancer.com is very popular with a huge amount of traffic and the site has just hit 800,000 jobs globally.

He said they have outsourced about $NZ88 million worth of work which is roughly equivalent to about half a billion dollars worth of western world jobs.

Although there is a domestic market, Barrie said the work is mostly going from developed countries in the west such as the US, UK and Canada to poorer developing countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

While outsourcing has come under criticism, especially from unions, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive Barrie said, with businesses becoming very competitive and increasing sales while cutting costs.

He said the company provides job opportunities in technical areas that don’t exist, particularly in the developing world. And he claims Freelancer “fills the gap” in a lot of jobs the western world is short of.

IT is the starting point but Barrie said increasingly every job is being digitised and involves an interchange of digital files and digital information.

“As broadband increases different types of jobs to outsource will just increase.”

Source:http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/tech-savvy-nz-perfect-freelance-expansion-3801888

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Infosys CEO: People trade privacy for tech benefits

September 25th, 2010

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People are willing to adjust their ideas about privacy if they can benefit from revealing more of their personal information, the CEO of Infosys Technologies said Thursday.

“You allow that privacy to be compromised for a benefit,” CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan said during a talk at MIT’s Emerging Technologies conference. The definition of privacy must now take into account whether personal information is “properly used to give additional benefits,” he said.

His remarks came in a speech about how most everyday items, from appliances to roadways, will contain processors and connect to the Internet. This pervasive network will carry data that generates real-time traffic reports from sensors embedded in roadways or allows a doctor to monitor a patient’s blood pressure remotely, he said.

Gopalakrishnan, whose company is one of India’s largest IT outsourcing providers, estimates that 50 billion to 60 billion devices will be connected to the Internet in the coming decades as processor prices decrease.

“That is an incredible expansion of the network,” he said. “These devices will have intelligence, but most intelligence will rely on the network.”

While some will argue whether such a ubiquitous network sacrifices privacy, Gopalakrishnan contends that technology has already changed the word’s meaning.

“In the digital world you are leaving trails all over the place,” he said.

Simple acts like using a cell phone and buying an airline ticket leave digital “fingerprints,” and closed-circuit cameras are scattered throughout cities like New York and London. But there are positive trade-offs for sharing personal information, he argued. Mobile phones and the Web have made life far more convenient, and closed-circuit cameras can prevent crime and help fight terrorism.

Social networking is a great example of our willingness to give up some of our privacy for what people see as a benefit — being part of an online community of friends.

For the Internet of Things to come about, though, all the legacy devices will need to be gradually upgraded. “The big issue is the legacy problem,” Gopalakrishnan said, “appliances that don’t have sensors because they’re old.”

But he implied that sensor networks will help save money, and there are ways to get around the shortage of sensor-enabled equipment. Infosys developed a power strip, he said, into which devices that lack sensors can be plugged. By controlling devices plugged into the strip, Infosys was able to cut the electricity use in an office 10 percent.

Smart networks will be used for a wide range of things and will lead to changes in data storage and parsing, he said. “This will happen over 20 to 30 years. We will need to develop new databases and analytical tools to use the data.”

Source:http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/206103/infosys_ceo_people_trade_privacy_for_tech_benefits.html