NIIT Technologies, an IT service provider, will service two major clients overseas from its office in Thailand, thanks to the competency of the Thai teamwork and readiness of the Kingdom as a service hub.

The firm just signed two new global contracts, to provide IT infrastructure management service to Eurostar Group and the IT integration/outsourcing for Morris Communications Group, according to Rajesh K S, the country manager of NIIT Technologies for Thailand.

The Eurostar Group is the large rail service operator connecting all railway routes of the Europe with the UK. Under the 5-year contract, the IT infrastructure system is provided to support the 2012 Olympic Games. Meanwhile, Morris Communications Group, a global media organisation in USA, signed a 5-year contract with NIIT by employing Thai teamwork and supervising all tasks from Thailand.

“The reason for choosing Thailand as a centre or hub for supervising such global task instead of India or Singapore is that we notice the competency of Thailand. The two main reasons are that we have the most excellent data center located in Thailand and Telecommunication / Internet system of Thailand is qualified and has best prices in this area which is suitable for such global task,” Rajesh said.

Nowadays NIIT in Thailand provides the two main services which are the design of new programmes required by customers and the supply of various kinds of software for business section and governmental section. There are 220 employees to support the tasks in this region. In 2005, the company is verified by ISO 27001: Information Security Management System and ISO 20000: IT Service Management Standard in 2006.

Source:http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/08/17/business/Thailand-as-IT-hub-to-service-UK-and-US-clients-30163015.html

What to make of the $250 million Infosys-Philips deal? Yesterday the Bangalore-based Infosys signed a BPO contract with Philips and bought three of the Dutch company’s outsourcing offices – in India as well as Poland and Thailand. Infosys investors seem to approve: The company’s stock rose 1.6% today, compared to a 0.2% drop in the Sensex index. Michael R. Guilbault, an analyst at Technology Business Research Inc. (a market research firm based in New Hampshire) was quick to send out an email praising the deal, complete with lots of bolds and underlines: “The Philips acquisition in Thailand increases Infosys BPO’s presence outside of India to another low-cost location that is not plagued with attrition and wage hyperinflation,” he wrote. “Lower attrition and slow wage inflation in both Poland and Thailand will boost margins by decreasing training and recruiting costs and keeping salary growth in check.”

The other big news from this deal involving the Philips BPO operation in Thailand: Thailand has a BPO industry! Who knew? When people talk about Asian alternatives to India as a services outsourcing center, they usually point to the Philippines and China. But Thailand? The country of course is a big tourist destination and Southeast Asia’s hub for automaking, but it’s not exactly a tech center. In the late 1990s, after collapse of the Asia bubble but before the collapse of the Internet bubble, I spoke to government officials in Bangkok who were upbeat about building a software industry in the country. Like many other dreams of Asian governments – think Hong Kong’s Cyber-Port – Thailand’s big tech plans didn’t quite live up to the hype. But with Infosys now operating in Bangkok, maybe there’s a chance that Thailand can at least grab a bit of the business that leaves India in search of cheaper locations.

Source:http://www.businessweek.com/blogs/eyeonasia/archives/2007/07/infosys_finds_thailand.html

India has piped China to become the world’s fastest growing telecom market, thanks to the various “innovative” ways such as infrastructure sharing and network management outsourcing adopted by it that has also helped operators keep the service charge low, says a report.

Terming India as “world’s fastest growing (telecom) market”, global rating agency Moody’s today said in the past 18 months, “India’s net additions of 10 million (subscribers) per month have far outpaced China’s monthly rate of increase, now below eight million”.

About two years ago, China was having the highest number of new subscribers on a monthly basis.

“Although emerging markets with relatively low penetration continue to have above-average rates of increase in new subscribers, those numbers tend to be slowing, except in India…,” Moody’s said in a statement.

The agency said that Indian telecom players were using “innovative means such as outsourcing network management and sharing mobile infrastructure to keep costs low in extending services to under-served rural areas”.

Moody’s said mobile operators in India frequently shared base stations and partner with other firms or independent cell-tower firms in expanding coverage to under-penetrated rural areas from where much of the growth was coming.

The agency said divestment of non-core assets like selling or sharing cell phone towers as a way to control costs and optimise capital expenditure had helped Indian operators in expanding coverage.

For the telecom sector in the Asia-Pacific region, Moody’s has assigned a “stable outlook” and noted that this market presents attractive investment opportunities.

The agency said the revenue growth for the region would drop sharply by year-end 2009 from the double-digit growth rates of last five years.

However, the full-year revenue growth for the industry this year will remain marginally positive.

Revenues from voice service and SMS are expected to fall but data revenue should continue to grow, Moody’s said.

The outlook is based on expectations from telecom operators in the Asia-Pacific region across Singapore, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Pakistan and Indonesia.

It did not include any Indian operator, though NTT Docomo and Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) which have partnerships in India were included.