INDIA’S TOP BPO PLAYERS

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) released the names of the biggest employers in the Indian IT-BPO services sector.

GENPACT

Genpact has a headcount of over 26,000.

Genpact was born in 1997 as the India-based business process operations for GE Capital. In 2005, with equity investments from General Atlantic and Oak Hill Capital Partners, it became an independent company and was rebranded Genpact. It is India's No. 1 BPO firm.

Genpact manages business for companies around the world with a network of more than 30 operations centres in nine countries. Genpact offers services in finance and accounting, collections and customer service, insurance, supply chain and procurement, analytics, enterprise application and IT infrastructure.

TCS

TCS is the largest IT employer in India with more than 126,000 employees.

TCS BPO is one of the leading players in the outsourcing industry. It offers services in areas such as finance and accounting, banking, HR outsourcing, KPO, insurance, payroll, healthcare, telecom, media, travel and entertainment.

TCS operates from more than 41 countries and has more than 155 offices across the globe. Its head office in India is located in Bangalore. It has branches in Mumbai, Gurgaon, Goa, Hyderabad, Pune, Lucknow and many other places in India.

While Tata Consultancy Services is India's top software company, TCS BPO established a stronghold in the BPO space.

INFOSYS

Infosys Technologies had 1,04,850 employees as on March 31, 2009.

Infosys BPO Ltd, the business process outsourcing subsidiary of Infosys Technologies, was set up in April 2002. Today, it is ranked among the leading BPO companies in India by Nasscom, Dataquest, the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, Red Herring, FAO Today and NelsonHall.

Infosys BPO focuses on integrated end-to-end outsourcing through lesser costs. Infosys BPO operates in India, the Czech Republic,.

WIPRO

Wipro had 98,521 employees as of June 30, 2009.

Wipro BPO has carved a unique position in the outsourcing industry. In 2002, Wipro took a quantum jump in the BPO services by acquiring the then Spectramind. Wipro BPO Solutions, complements the services offered by Wipro Technologies, making it one of the largest BPO service players.

The company operates out of 10 different locations (India and Eastern Europe) serves clients across the globe. Wipro BPO clientele spans across banking and capital markets, insurance, travel and hospitality, hi-tech manufacturing, telecom and healthcare sectors.

COGNIZANT

With 50 global delivery centers and about over 63,000 associates, Cognizant combines a unique onsite/offshore delivery model infused by a distinct culture of customer satisfaction.

A member of the Nasdaq-100 Index and S&P 500 Index, Cognizant is a Forbes Global 2000 company and a member of the Fortune 1000 and is ranked among the top information technology companies in BusinessWeek's Info Tech 100, Hot Growth and Top 50 Performers listings.

HCL TECH

HCL Tech had 54,026 employees as on March 31, 2009.

HCL BPO, a division of HCL Technologies Limited was established in 2001. With over 13,200 professionals operating out of India and Northern Ireland, HCL BPO runs fourteen delivery centres across India, UK and Malaysia.

HCL BPO offers multilingual support in eight European languages and eight Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections (APAC) languages.

HCL BPO's focuses on sectors like telecom, retail, banking and financial services, insurance, hi-tech & manufacturing, and media, publishing and entertainment.

Shiv Nadar is the founder, chairman and chief strategy officer of HCL Technologies.

HP INDIA

HP India has close to 50,000 employees.

HP is a technology company that operates in more than 170 countries around the world. It explores how technology and services can help people and companies address their problems and challenges, and realise their possibilities, aspirations and dreams.

Stanford University classmates Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard founded HP in 1939. The company's first product, built in a Palo Alto garage, was an audio oscillator-- an electronic test instrument used by sound engineers.

MPHASIS

MphasiS employs over 30,000 people.

MphasiS BPO provides value-added voice and transaction-based contact center and business process outsourcing services to Fortune 500 companies worldwide.

Its strengths include customising onshore, nearshore, and offshore solutions. Its BPO centres in Bangalore, Mangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Noida, Ahmedabad and Puducherry in India offer English language support, and the Tijuana, Mexico facility offers Spanish and bilingual solutions to target the Hispanic market in the US.

INTELENET

Intelenet has about 28,000 employees.

The company's focus is on providing solutions to global organisations seeking to reduce costs while consistently maintaining superior service levels.

Their solutions extend across all strata of BPO, technology and consulting and can be applied to organisations in industries as diverse as banking and finance, insurance, retail, telecom, information technology, travel and hospitality.

Areas of operation: Australia, India, Philippines, Mauritius, USA, Central America.

IBM DAKSH

IBM Daksh has over 27,000 employees.

IBM Daksh was created by four profesionals -- Sanjiv Agarwal, Pawan Vaish, MJ Aravind and Venkat Tedanki -- who saw a great opportunity in the business process outsourcing space. With no business model to follow, it was a big challenge to set up the company.

IBM Daksh is known for a good leadership, a focussed vision and an undying passion. In April 2004, IBM Corporation acquired Daksh e-Services to serve as a global hub to manage business processes for clients from across the world.

A Nasscom statement said that the IT-BPO sector reached $58.8 billion in FY08-09 up from $52 billion in FY07-08, showing resilience defying global economic meltdown.

The export revenues for the Indian IT-BPO industry recorded growth of 16.3 per cent and clocked revenues of $46.3 billion in FY08-09 up from $40.4 billion in FY07-08. The domestic segment grew by 21% to register revenues of Rs 570 billion in FY08-09 from Rs 470 billion in FY07-08.

Other big BPO employers in India are:

11. Tech Mahindra Ltd

12. Aegis Ltd

13. WNS Global Services (P) Ltd

14. Firstsource Solutions Ltd

15. CSC India Pvt Ltd

16. Patni Computer Systems Ltd

17. Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd

18. Hinduja Global Solutions Pvt Ltd

19. Oracle Financial Services Software Ltd

20. Convergys India Services

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Business News Update

MAY 14TH 2012: STANDARD CHARTERED PREDICTS DEPRECIATION OF RUPEE VERSUS DOLLAR

Standard Chartered is of the view that the rupee is facing choppy trading in the near-term. It expects another 2-3 per cent weakening of the rupee from the current levels amid global uncertainty.

The bank has also lowered its medium-term rating on the rupee to 'neutral' from 'overweight' as continued policy inertia lowers the possibility of sustained inflows.

The bank has recommended that dollar based investors in Indian assets should maintain high short-term foreign exchange hedge ratios. It is of the opinion that importers should keep high foreign exchange hedge ratios in the rupee for the short-term. The bank expects exporters to remain sidelined until a record high of around 54.30 is tested. 

MAY 11TH 2012: INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION DIPS BY 3.5% IN MARCH

Industrial production declined by 3.5 per cent in March mainly on account of contraction in manufacturing and mining output.

Growth in the factory output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production, was higher at 9.4 per cent in March last year.

The industrial production has been dismal at 2.8 per cent in 2011-12 as compared to 8.2 per cent in previous fiscal.

MAY 10TH 2012: RELIANCE BUYS STAKE IN HDFC, ICICI BANK AND AXIS BANK

Awaiting regulatory approvals for its foray into financial services sector, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries has acquired shares in giants like HDFC, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank as part of long-term 'investments'.

These financial investments, estimated to be worth over Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion), include purchase of shares of six banks - three each from the public and private sectors -and one housing finance major, HDFC.

The banks whose shares Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has acquired also include HDFC Bank, SBI, Punjab National Bank and Canara Bank and these have been classified among 'long-term investments' of the country's biggest private sector company in its annual report for the year 2011-12.

MAY 9TH 2012: HCL GROUP TO FORAY INTO INSURANCE SECTOR

 DLF Pramerica Life, seeking an Indian partner for its operation, is in talks with HCL Group to sell a majority stake. 

Earlier regulations prevented Indian promoters of insurance companies from divesting stake before completing 10 years in the business.

 With the finance ministry deciding to waive that requirement late last year, HCL Group is now set to buy 51 per cent stake in DLF Pramerica Life Insurance Company.

The deal size is expected to be around Rs 500 crore. KPMG has been appointed as the adviser for the transaction.

MAY 8TH 2012 VODAFONE-LIKE DEALS WILL BE TAXED, MAINTAINS PRANAB

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has acknowledged that Vodafone-like deals, in which underlying assets were in India would be taxable if investments came from non-double taxation avoidance agreement, low tax countries.

He asserted India couldn't be treated as a tax haven, like the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands or Isle of Man, just for the sake of foreign direct investment.

He asserted Parliament has the right to make amendments to laws, following Supreme Court judgments.

MAY 7TH 2012: RBI HAS LITTLE ROOM TO CUT INTEREST RATES

Despite growth and inflation balance shifting favourably, the Reserve Bank of India foresees inflationary pressures in the medium and long term.

In the present economic environment, there is little room for lowering interest rates, said RBI deputy governor Subir Gokarn.

"The central bank has started the process of reducing interest rates from last month.

"However, if you look at our inflation projections, in relation to what we consider as long-term or medium-term objective, there are inflation pressures.

"That, in a sense, limits the room that we have to reduce rates," Gokarn said on the sidelines of Ficci's national executive council meeting held in Hyderabad 

For the first time in three years, RBI had slashed the short-term lending rate by 0.5 per cent to eight per cent in April 2012.

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IT/ITES News Update

14^th May 2012: IT FIRMS PRESENT A GLIM GROWTH OUTLOOK

The top four Indian IT firms together grew revenues by a mere 1.2% - the slowest since the fourth quarter of 2009 fiscal.

Pricing, or per-hour rates charged by IT firms, declined 1.2% - the sharpest quarterly sequential decline since the last quarter of 2009 fiscal. 

After growing at around 16% in 2011-12, India's second-largest software exporter Infosys expects to grow by only 8-10% in the year to March 2013. 

This is much lower than the 11-14% growth forecast by the National Association of Software & Services Companies (Nasscom).

11^TH MAY 2012: HCL TECHNOLOGIES AND CONSUMERS ENERGY SET UP TECHNOLOGY CENTER AT MICHIGAN

In a bid to increase local hiring and scale up processes, HCL America, a wholly owned subsidiary of HCL Technologies and Consumers Energy, the fourth largest US electric and natural gas company have collaborated to set up a Center of Excellence (GCoE) called the Michigan Technology Development Center (MTDC).

The center will be located at the Commonwealth Commerce Center in downtown Jackson, Michigan.
As part of the agreement, HCL expects to hire local technology professionals and create 300 professional technology positions during phase one of the MTDC openings.

The MTDC also will be a designated training and development hub for advanced and emerging IT processes, tools and will work with local universities and colleges.

10^th May 2012: TCS EXPANDS OPERATIONS IN NORDIC REGIONS

Software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has doubled the size of its operations in the Nordic regions since 2010. I

It had more than 25 large scale projects and transformational projects in the region

TCS is one of the few companies that been able to balance industry leading growth while maintaining pole position in client satisfaction, according to Carl-henrisk Hallstrrom, head of sourcing advisory at KPMG.

9^TH May 2012: MICROSOFT URGES INDIAN GOVERNMENT TO PAY ATTENTION TO IT INDUSTRY ISSUES

Microsoft India has highlights that the Indian IT Industry has some major concerns that need to be tackled immediately to boost growth of the industry.

Microsoft India chairman Bhaskar Pramanik has acknowledged that the industry wants a stable and predictable policy and regime. It wants less ambiguity, clear guidelines, clear policies and an environment where everybody can do business successfully and legally.

8^TH MAY 2012: GOVERNMENT TO SET UP FUND TO PROMOTE R&D IN IT SECTOR

The government is planning to set up an electronic development fund to promote innovation and commercialization of products in the IT sector.

"Under the draft National Policy on Electronics 2011, it has been proposed to create an electronic development fund to promote innovation, R&D, commercialization of products in the IT sector," Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot told the Lok Sabha.

The policy also proposes to provide incentives for setting up of over 200 electronic manufacturing clusters (EMCs) with world class logistics and infrastructure and easy to do business facilities. 

7^TH MAY 2012: MAHINDRA SATYAM IN ALLIANCE WITH US-BASED GALORATH

Mahindra Satyam, a consulting, engineering and IT services provider, announced a global alliance partnership with Galorath Inc, a California-based leading provider of estimation solutions called SEER.

This partnership shall focus on providing solutions to discrete manufacturing companies across industry domains like aerospace, industrial, energy and automotive, Mahindra Satyam said in a release here.

"Through this alliance, Galorath and Mahindra Satyam will complement each other's strengths to provide `Should Costing' (approximation of contract pricing) consulting solutions to customers based upon the estimation strengths within the 'SEER for Manufacturing' solution, it said.

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