Newsletter : ITES / BFSI Sector

7 Mar 2011: Infosys likely to set up centre in Bihar 

Information technology giant Infosys is likely to set up its first software development centre in Bihar and the state government is planning to provide it with land.

6 Mar 2011: Cognizant to embark on $285 mn expansion programme across India 

Cognizant Technology Solutions is planning a major expansion programme in various cities at a budgeted $ 285 million on the back of a 40 per growth rate over last year. The expansion programme would be in the form of real estate and upgrading/updating/introducing technology. The expansion would be in cities including Chennai, Coimbatore, Kolkata, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

4 Mar 2011: Infosys BPO to add 500 more seats in Poland and Czech Republic 

Infosys BPO said it plans to add 500 more seats in the next fiscal in Poland and Czech Republic as part of its growth strategy.

4 Mar 2011: Infosys BPO to hire 8,000; sees 18-20% growth in FY-12 

Infosys BPO expects revenue growth of 18-20 percent in the financial year that begins in April. The company will also hire 8,000 staff. Attrition is expected to stabilize to 25-30 percent in the next fiscal.


In January, parent Infosys posted third-quarter profit that lagged estimates sparking concerns about the outlook for India's showpiece outsourcing sector.

4 Mar 2011: MphasiS publishes results of different verticals 


MphasiS was earlier attacked for its lack of proper disclosures and transparency regarding billing rates for the work it does for HP, which owns over 60% stake in the domestic firm. MphasiS garners around 69% revenue from its parent.

MphasiS, which follows a November to October fiscal, reported an 8% sequential decline in revenue to Rs 1,216.4 crore and a 20% fall in net profit to Rs 226.7 crore for the quarter ended January 2011. On an annual basis, revenues rose 5.2%, while profits fell 15.5%. According to the newly presented "towerwise" information, the application services vertical saw a 2.4% annual fall and 9.5% sequential fall in revenues to Rs 790.5 crore in the quarter ending January 31.

The ITO (infrastructure technology outsourcing) services vertical rose 47.2% annually, but fell 6.4% sequentially to Rs 290.2 crore, while BPO services revenues fell 17.4% annually and 5.4% sequentially to Rs 152.8 crore.

As for billing rates, the onsite applications rate stood at $72 per hour, while the onsite ITO rate was $67. The offshore applications and ITO billing rates stood at $19 each, while the offshore BPO billing rates stood at $7. For offshore applications, it's a big fall from the $23 that it saw a year ago. Analysts may see this as unusual.


4 Mar 2011: Facebook valued at $65 billion in new investment
Investment firm General Atlantic is investing in Facebook, valuing the leading social network at $65 billion, representing a 30 per cent boost from its last big investment in January.


General Atlantic is purchasing a block of roughly 2.5 million Facebook shares from former Facebook employees, giving the firm a 0.1 per cent stake in the company.


In January, Facebook said it had raised $1.5 billion from investors including Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies.

4 Mar 2011: BofA Merrill India capital markets head quits 

Bank of America Lynch's global capital markets head in I-Merrillndia is leaving the bank to join a private-equity firm. Saurabh Sonthalia had joined Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in 2009, said a source, declining to be named as the information was not public.



4 Mar 2011: Nilesh Shah to join Axis Bank as President, Corporate Banking 
Nilesh Shah, one of the top fund managers in the industry who recently quit ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund after being with the fund for nearly seven years, is joining Axis Bank. Shah will be joining the bank's corporate banking division as president, overseeing its strategic initiatives and leading the bank's business in the investment baking space. The 42-year-old Shah had left I-Pru MF about three weeks ago, where he was the deputy managing director.

4 Mar 2011: Bharti AXA investment managers' head Quits 
Bharti AXA Investment Managers' equity head Prateek Agrawal has put in his papers. Agrawal is the fourth top level exit the firm has seen over the past couple of months.

Prior to this, three senior executives had resigned, including human resources head Debraj Sinha, fixed-income head Sujoy Kumar Das, and country head - business development Vikaas M Sachdeva.
The asset management company has been scouting for a suitable bank partner with pan-India distribution after Bharti announced its decision to move out of the mutual fund business.

3 Mar 2011: Rebuilding past, single biggest driver for company: Mahindra Satyam 

Mahindra Satyam, which has been focusing on strategies to rebuild itself post the scam in 2009 involving founder B Ramalinga Raju, said it was the story of rebuilding its past that was the single most driver for the company.

Mahindra satyam Chief Marketing Officer and Chief People Officer Hari Thalapalli said:

On hiring: "In the last quarterly results we said that we look to hire 6,000-7,000 people during 2011-12.
The hiring will be a mix of both lateral and campus selection. I believe at this stage the laterals will be on the higher side. For next year we will be moving back to an equal split between campus and laterals and a year after freshers will be higher".

On Wage hike he said, "At present there are no trends that I could specifically tell you but we will decide on it in the next two months. We will look at what the industry is doing, what are the compulsions of the industry and we will come up with it".

On Attrition, he said, "The attrition rate is quite high, but some of the best performing organizations, some of the best paying systems still have attrition in the lower 20s or thereabout. So I don't think it is a question of money. It is the purpose of your work that you need to see than the wage hikes.”

2 Mar 2011: Outsourcing: Aviva likely to shift some WNS work to Norwich 

London-based insurance major Aviva is shifting back some work from its Indian outsourcing partner WNS' Bangalore centre to its own back-office operations in Norwich.

The move, which involves moving out call-centre related work of Aviva's motor insurance division, will not result in major job cuts locally, Aviva says. Aviva has been a long-term outsourcer to India shifting thousands of back-end jobs to Indian partners since 2003.

For several years, EXL Services, WNS and 24/7 Customer were Aviva's core IT vendors in India. This changed when the company consolidated its outsourcing services under a captive unit, Aviva Global Services, which was subsequently acquired by WNS in 2008 for $200 million. Post the deal, WNS and Aviva signed an eight-year contract worth over $1 billion, wherein WNS would handle Aviva's outsourced business for eight years.