Industry Updates : ITeS / BFSI Sector

13 Jun 2011: Wipro IT business CFO Manish Dugar to head BPO operations 

In yet another management rejig at Wipro, the current CFO of its IT business Manish Dugar is set to take over from Ashutosh Vaidya as the head of its BPO operations. Dugar's role in the company will be taken over by Jatin Dalal, chief financial officer, Europe & Global Head of Finance - Manufacturing, Energy & Utilities SBUs.

The BPO business contributed almost 10% to Wipro technologies' revenue of over $5.1 billion revenue in FY 11 and the company has articulated its aim to take this to the billion dollar mark in the near future. 

 11 Jun 2011: Senior level executive Subhash Dhar resigns from Infosys

In yet another resignation at senior level at the country's second largest software exporter Infosys, Subhash Dhar, Head of Innovation, has decided to quit. "Subhash Dhar has decided to leave the company. He has said he is looking at a start-up, of becoming an entrepreneur," Infosys Technologies Chairman N R Narayana Murthy said.

11 Jun 2011: Infosys appoints four new members to Board

Infosys Technologies  inducted four new members to its board, including current CFO V Balakrishnan. While Balakrishnan is currently serving as the chief financial officer, Vemuri is the Senior Vice President and Global Head (Banking and Capital Markets) at the firm. Srinivas is the Senior Vice President and Member of the Executive Council at Infosys. Ann Fudge is the former chairman and CEO of Young & Rubicam Brands, a global network of marketing communications companies. She is also on the board of GE, Novartis and Unilever.

 10 Jun 2011: Infosys eyes UK government contracts to close in on TCS, Wipro

Infosys is evaluating options to tap into UK's multi-billion government outsourcing market, as it seeks to compete better with larger domestic rival Tata Consultancy Services by increasing its share of revenues from public sector departments looking to cut costs.

So far, India's second-biggest software exporter has stayed away from addressing the UK's government outsourcing market. In contrast, rivals TCS and Wipro have established subsidiaries and won several deals, including from the country's pension management authority and tax department.

8 Jun 2011: Religare Securities appoints Manish Shah as head of Priority Clients Group

Religare Securities Ltd (RSL), a wholly-owned subsidiary and the broking arm of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL), has announced the appointment of Manish Shah as Head of Priority Clients Group (PCG), Religare Securities Ltd. Manish brings with him with over two decades of experience in IPO marketing, research, institution sales, depository services, internet broking, equity product development, equity advisory and business strategy.

8 Jun 2011: UBS names Mittal head of India investment banking: Memo

UBS AG has appointed Ashok Mittal as head of investment banking for India, according to an internal memo seen. Prior to joining UBS, Mittal was with Lehman Brothers and had also worked as co-head of investment banking with HSBC, the memo said. Mark Panday, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for UBS, confirmed the appointment of Mittal as head of India investment banking.

8 Jun 2011: Cognizant proposes Rs 600 crore campus in West Bengal

Investment proposals don't mean investments for sure, but if such proposals are exciting and come to a government that is merely 18 days in office, it is surely reason enough to feel happy. Still no announcements were made, no drums beaten. But Cognizant, the fourth-largest IT company in the country, has submitted a proposal to the West Bengal government to set up a new IT software campus on 40 acres, that can give jobs to some 30,000 people. 

7 Jun 2011: US economy and unemployment worry Indian tech firms

Early signs of a potential slowdown in the US, marked by high unemployment and weakening consumer demand, is causing anxiety among India’s top tech firms deriving more than half of their business from the world's biggest market for software outsourcing.

Concerns of worsening macro-economic factors including falling housing prices can delay new technology investments by American firms, force outsourcing customers to renegotiate lower billing rates for software projects and could eventually affect the growth forecast for India's $70 billion IT sector if a recession takes shape, experts and company officials say.

6 Jun 2011: HSBC India appoints Srikanth Srinivasamadhavan Marketing Head

HSBC India  announced the appointment of Srikanth Srinivasamadhavan as Head of Marketing for HSBC India.

His rich and varied experience will help him in positioning the HSBC brand in India as the bank of choice for India's growing retail and wealth management and corporate consumers, a press release issued stated.

Prior to joining HSBC, he worked with Hindustan Unilever across many marketing and leadership roles.

In his last role, he was Head of Media Services, South Asia, for Hindustan Unilever, where he was responsible for the FMCG major's media planning, strategy, budgeting and deployment across product categories.

6 Jun 2011: IBM expanding data centre business in India

IBM is betting big on its data centre business, driven by the telecom sector, as more companies look at outsourcing their data storage requirements. Sectors like manufacturing and BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) and telecom are expected to see huge growth this year for data centre deployment.

4 Jun 2011: Challenges ahead for new Infosys sales head Basab Pradhan

As Basab Pradhan, a former company veteran, prepares to take over as sales head of Infosys, he faces challenges of increased competition from rivals such as Cognizant apart from visa abuse allegations in the top outsourcing market of US that threaten to dent the image of India's second biggest software exporter.

At 45, Pradhan, who left Infosys in 2005 to start Gridstone Research, is perhaps going to face the toughest assignment of career, at a time when Infosys is trying to fend of rivals growing better, and is undergoing the biggest management rejig in its history.

2 Jun 2011: Capgemini expands global leadership team

IT consulting major Capgemini  announced two key international appointments based in India with Arun Sridhar taking over as Vice President (Infrastructure Services) and Kiran Cavale as Vice President (Global Business Information Management).

Sridhar, as part of the Infrastructure Services Strategic Business Unit, will be responsible for driving Data Centre Services globally for Capgemini. Prior to Capgemini, Sridhar was with Accenture and has a career spanning over 15 years, working with large companies across US and Europe.

Cavale, as part of the Global Business Information Management (BIM) Global Service Line leadership team in Capgemini, will take responsibility for optimising Capgemini's BIM assets in India and for developing strategies to drive global growth for the practice.

1 Jun 2011: Ajit Tolani quits KPMG, joins ELP as associate partner

Audit firm KPMG's transfer pricing advisor Ajit Tolani is joining Mumbai headquartered corporate law firm Economic Law Practices (ELP) as an associate partner. He will be handling Transfer Pricing for the firm.

A chartered accountant and a lawyer by training, Mr Tolani has spent most of his career in the field of transfer pricing advisory and litigation. Mr Tolani has 9 years of experience in Global Transfer Pricing Services at KPMG. Before joining the global audit firm he had completed his article from RSM & Co.

Read more...

Industry Updates : IT Sector

11 Jun 2011: Ness Technologies to be acquired by affiliate of CVCI

Ness Technologies, Inc., a global provider of information technology solutions and services, announced its merger agreement with an affiliate of Citi Venture Capital International, a global private equity investment fund. It said the affiliate of CVCI will acquire it in a deal valued at around USD 307 million.

11 Jun 2011:  Mahindras to sue B Ramalinga Raju and former independent Satyam Directors over fee refund

Even as the Mahindras are planning to drag disgraced Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju to court to claim damages, they are also learnt to be seriously considering suing the scam-hit company's erstwhile independent directors to recover the remuneration paid to them.

With the former independent directors of Satyam failing to heed the company's communications seeking a refund of the fee paid to them, a legal action is now becoming inevitable.

9 Jun 2011: Mahindra Satyam opens smart grid customer demo centre

Mahindra Satyam, a city-based consulting and IT services firm on Thursday said it has opened a smart grid customer demonstration centre at its 120-acre premises here.

The CDC will help customers understand the next generation technology in real time and evolutes various technologies underlying the smart grid technologies.

 9 Jun 2011: QuEST, Cades outbid Infy, Mahindra Satyam to clinch contract from Airbus

Niche tech firms, QuEST and Cades, outbid bigger Indian rivals, including Infosys , to win an outsourcing contract from Airbus — the world's biggest commercial plane maker signaling a trend of large outsourcing customers preferring to work with specialist vendors for complex , engineering projects. 

9 Jun 2011: Infosys acquires New Zealand's Gen-i's software solutions business

Infosys said that its Australia and New Zealand unit has acquired the software solutions business of New Zealand's Gen-i for an undisclosed sum. Infosys said it will take over 110 employees and contractors from Gen-i, which would raise its New Zealand staff strength to up to 150 people. It also plans to add 15-30 new hires immediately.

Gen-i is the corporate information communication technology (ICT) arm of Telecom New Zealand .

8 Jun 2011: IBM to increase its presence in 25 more cities by 2013

As part of its expansion plan, particularly in smaller cities in India, software major IBM aims to increase its presence in 25 more cities, besides the existing 22, by 2013.  The expansion is part of the company's strategy to establish its presence in growth markets, which are at present spreading to smaller cities, Nipun Mehrotra, Vice-President, General Business, Routes and Geographic Expansion, IBM India, South Asia said.

 8 Jun 2011: Security software market grew 12% in 2010 to $16.5 billion: Gartner

Worldwide security software revenue witnessed a growth of 12 per cent in 2010 to $16.5 billion, driven by a rebound in demand for such solutions, according to research firm Gartner.

While mature areas like endpoint security and web access management showed single-digit growth, security information and event management (SIEM) and secure web gateway products experienced double-digit growth, Gartner said.

 8 Jun 2011: Domestic cloud computing estimated to grow at 53%

The domestic cloud computing industry is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 53% to be a Rs 2,434 crore market by 2014, a study conducted by CyberMedia Research India said.

"Cloud computing is witnessing widespread interest from the vendor-service provider-channel community on the one hand and business leaders and CIOs on the other," CyberMedia Research India Software and IT Services Research Lead Analyst Kamal Vohra said.

This is fuelled by the strong belief that cloud computing will allow a large number of SMB enterprises to adopt the same enterprise class software and technology solutions, it added. As per the study, penetration in cloud computing is expected to grow by 6.8% in 2012 from 4% in 2010. 

 7 Jun 2011: Wipro creates technology executive & business councils to drive growth

IT major Wipro has formed a technology executive council (TEC) and a technology business council (TBC) to gear up for future waves of growth.

Like many of its peers, Wipro is now looking to move away from a pure services driven business model to one that involves developing platforms and products, including developing IP ( Intellectual property ).

The company's newly appointed CTO, Anurag Srivastava, said that the focus of the company is now to differentiate from its peers through unique offerings.

 6 Jun 2011: IBM bags IT contract worth Rs 298 cr from IIFL

 IBM will change IT infrastructure for financial services provider India Infoline, or IIFL, as a strategic partner over a contracted period of 10 years. The Rs 298-crore outsourcing contract will reduce operational and capital expenditure and create higher uptime for the company's broking platform.

Under the agreement, IBM will manage more than 700 IIFL branches, 450 servers spread across five data centers and nine local server rooms with over 15,000 end user assets spread across India.

 6 Jun 2011: Infosys to provide banking software to HBTF

 Infosys Technologies  said it has partnered with Jordan-based The Housing Bank for Trade and Finance (HBTF) to provide core banking solution to power the bank's customer care agenda.

The IT solution would empower the bank's 112 home country branches with a unified, future-proof technology platform delivering all the benefits of support for multi-currency transactions.

 3 Jun 2011: NIIT to acquire soft skill training company Evolv

 IT training company NIIT said that the company's Board of Directors has given the nod to acquire the balance 40 per cent stake in Noida-based English language and soft skill training company Evolv.  NIIT spokesperson Prateek Chatterjee said that NIIT is transitioning from an IT training company to a talent development company. Hence, the deal strategically fits the company future road map.

1 Jun 2011: IBM India's revenues cross $3 billion; contracts with Bharti Airtel & Indian Railways now worth $1.5 billion

IBM India's revenues crossed $3 billion (Rs 13,500 crore) in the year ended March, helped by contracts from a number of companies looking to improve their performance through better use of technology. Big Blue, a name IBM acquired from its blue-painted mainframe computers of the 60s, now controls over half of the outsourcing business in a market that is home to the world's fastest-growing tech firms.

Nearly half of this is from India's domestic market, where IBM handles computer hardware, software and services functions of customers such as Bharti Airtel. Some revenues also come from developing solutions for government customers such as Indian Railways, which took the company's help for developing a crew management system last year.

Read more...