BPOs

BPOs are the most happening sector in the Indian employement market today.A close look into the present senario and we can forcaste the future employement gaps and fills..............
Read here for more info:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articlelist/26865660.cms

Job aspirants cheer up, more hiring in Oct-Dec 2006 !!

BANGALORE: It’s a good news for those in the job market right now. All major sectors are expected to increase their hiring activities in October-December quarter, according to the TeamLease Employment Outlook Survey. The main recruitment drivers include retail, media, FMCG (all at 95 index points), IT (94 index points) and financial services (91 index points). The five sectors are expected to hire at a rate faster than the growth of their business.

Read More : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2154051.cms

Pay them, pamper them and add 20% to your bottomline

Companies which lay stress on human resource activities and provide their employees incentives such as pay hikes and flexitime may get several benefits, says a new study.

Such companies could enjoy a 10-20% improvement in employee retention, employee productivity, profitability and stock price, said the study that is to appear in the upcoming issue of the journal Personnel Psychology.

Read More : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1941547.cms

For countries like CHINA & INDIA where the cost advantage matters, what would be the diverse effects of this kind of a policy. Raise your comments ...

Satyam to add 4,000 staff in Asia Pacific

SINGAPORE: Satyam Computer Services is planning to expand its footprint in the Asia Pacific region with the addition of 4,000 employees this year.

A large part of the increase in headcount will be in China where the company is planning to set up a 3,000-seat development facility. The company is also close to clinching an acquisition in Japan in the IT services space.

Read more : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2062328.cms

Leadership styles-Management styles

There has always been a thin line between the basis of leadership and management.lets see what the 'big and successful' define both by their real life experiments.

Read here:
http://www.secretsofsuccess.com/leadership/

So how do YOU define both.........?

7 lakh IT jobs to be created in 2006

Indian Economy has seen a rapid growth in these couple of years, and we have seen up's and down's in the job markets as well. The Ma Foi Employment Survey has pegged the new number of jobs in ’06 at 10.3 lakh plus.

The IT and ITES sector will account for over 7,00,000 jobs ....

A detailed article has been published by Economic Times

Read : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2143003.cms

Any comments are welcome on this subject.

The essence of Leadership

The essence of Leadership, according to Mr Vivek Man Singh of Dell lies in the building trust and connecting with people



He says “A manager can tell his team what to do, but it is the leader who makes them want to do it.’



Read http://www.thesmarttechie.com/Leadership/StoryDetails.asp?stid=240&cat=Leadership

Hospitality sector may add 94,000 new recruits !!

WITH the hospitality industry set to add 53,000 new rooms across 40 properties over the next five years, around 94,000 fresh heads are required to manage these new hotels. Apart from the major metros, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, big demand for hospitality manpower is likely to come from tier II cities like Pune, Jaipur, Goa, Hyderabad, and Cochin.

As per latest research by hospitality consultancy HVS International, around 53% of the fresh room inventory is entering the luxury and first-class segment across ten key markets in the country. To manage the additional inventory, the hospitality industry will need to increase its current stock of hotel professionals by over three times from 45,000-level to over 1,38,300 over the next five years.

The Pune market will add over 4,600 rooms between 2005-06 and 2011-12, and the city will see 900% growth in hospitality manpower in the same period. Hyderabad will see its stock of hotel-related human resources grow by over 500% from current levels of around 2,500 to over 15,000 in the next five years.

The Nizam city will add over 7,400 rooms in that period, the bulk of which will be in five-star and five-star deluxe category. Tech city Bangalore will add over 7,700 rooms over the next five years, over 50% of which will be in luxury and first-class category. This is slated to increase its stock of human resources in the hospitality sector from 3,300-level to over 17,000 in the next five years, a jump of more than 400%

Another market that will register almost 300% growth in its hotel manpower stock is Cochin, growing from current figure of around 600 to beyond the 2400 mark by 2012. The port city will add over 1,000 rooms in that period, 60% of which will be in the mid-market and budget segments. Chennai will have over 11,400 hotel professionals by 2012, growing its current stock by 214%. The southern metro is set to add over 4,400 rooms over the next five years to its current inventory, with close to 60% in five-star and five-star deluxe categories.

The pink city of Jaipur, which adds over 2,700 rooms over the next five years, will need to hire over 4,700 heads to manage the extra inventory. Sun and sandy state of Goa will add another 2,600 rooms and an additional 4,500 heads in the next five years. Delhi and NCR will see its stock of hospitality-related pool grow by 155% to cross the 31,000 mark in the same period while in case of Mumbai, the figure would be touching the 30,000 mark from the current 13,000.

Delhi/NCR and Mumbai would see the biggest growth in room inventory over the next five years, adding between them over 20,000. The Eastern metro of Kolkata will see its pool of hospitality professionals grow to more than 6,700 from the current 2,300 level over the next five years, as it adds another 2,400 rooms to its inventory, the bulk of which will be in mid-market and budget segments.

According to Mr Saurabh Gupta, head of hospitality executive search, HVS International, the industry will start feeling the impact of manpower shortage from 2008 onwards when bulk of additional supply starts flowing in. Over 40,000 new rooms are set to enter the market between 2008 and 2010. The average employee-to-room ratio in India is 1.8, across all markets, with the only exception being three-star hotel category where the ratio drops to 1.5 per room. Incidentally, Indian hotels remain overstaffed by 20-25% compared to international standards, where the average is 1.6 person per room.

Top 10 geek business myths

Myth #1: A brilliant idea will make you rich.

Reality: A brilliant idea is neither necessary nor sufficient for a successful business, although all else being equal it can't hurt. Microsoft is probably the canonical example of a successful business, and it has never had a single brilliant idea in its entire history. (To the contrary, Microsoft has achieved success largely by seeking out and destroying other people's brilliant ideas.) Google was based on a couple of brilliant ideas (Page rank, text-only ads, massive parallel implementation on cheap hardware) but none of those ideas were original with Larry or Sergey. This is not to say that Larry, Sergey and Bill are not bright guys -- all three of them are sharper than I can ever hope to be. But the idea that any of them woke up one day with an inspiration and coasted the rest of the way to riches is a myth.

Myth #2: If you build it they will come.

There is a grain of truth to this myth. There have been examples of businesses that just built a product, cast it upon the ether(net), and achieved success. (Google is the canonical example.) But for every Google there are ten examples of companies that had killer products that didn't sell for one reason or another.

Myth #3: Someone will steal your idea if you don't protect it.

Reality: No one gives a damn about your idea until you actually succeed and by then it's too late. Even on the off chance that you do manage to stumble across someone who is as excited about your idea as you are, if they have any brains they will join you rather than try to beat you. (And if they don't have any brains then it doesn't matter what they do.)

Myth #4: What you think matters.

Reality: It matters not one whit that you and all your buddies think that your idea is the greatest thing since sliced pizza (unless, of course, your buddies are rich enough to be the customer base for your business). What matters is what your customers think. It is natural to assume that if you and your buddies think your idea is cool that millions of other people out there will think it's cool too, and sometimes it works out that way, but usually not. The reason is that if you are smart enough to have a brilliant idea then you (and most likely your buddies) are different from everyone else.

Myth #5: Financial models are bogus.

As with myth #2 there is a grain of truth here. As Carl Sagan was fond of saying, prophecy is a lost art. There is no way to know for sure how much money your business is going to make, or how much it will cost to get to market. The reason for doing financial models is to do a reality check and convince yourself that making a return on investment is even a plausible possibility. If you run the numbers and find out that in order to reach break-even you need a customer base that is ten times larger than the currently known market for your product then you should probably rethink things. As Dwight Eisenhower said: plans are useless, but planning is indispensible.

Myth #6: What you know matters more than who you know.

The truth is, who you know matters more than what you know. This is not to say that being smart and knowledgable is useless. Knowing "what" is often an effective means of getting introduced to the right "whos". But ultimately, the people you know and trust (and more importantly who trust you) matter more than the factual knowledge you may have at your immediate disposal. And there is a sound reason for this: business decisions are horrifically complicated. No one person can possibly amass all the knowledge and experience required to make a broad range of such decisions on their own, so effective business people delegate much of their decision-making to other people. And when they choose who to delegate to, their first pick is always people they know and trust.

Myth #7: A Ph.D. means something.

Reality: The only thing a Ph.D. means is that you're not a moron, and you're willing to put up with the bullshit it takes to slog your way through a Ph.D. program somewhere. Empirically, having a Ph.D. is negatively correlated with business success. This is because the reward structure in academia is almost the exact opposite of what it is in business. In academia, what your peers think matters. In business, it's what your customers think that matters, and your customers are (almost certainly) not your peers.

[UPDATE: this is not to say that getting a Ph.D. is useless. You can learn a lot of useful stuff by getting a Ph.D. But it's the knowledge and experience that you gain by going through the process that is potentially valuable (for business endeavors), not the degree itself.]

Myth #8: I need $5 million to start my business

Reality: Unless you're building hardware (in which case you should definitely rethink what you're doing) you most likely don't need any startup capital at all. Paul Graham has written extensively about this so I won't belabor it too much, except to say this: you don't need much startup capital, but what you do need is a willingness to work your buns off. You have to bring your brilliant idea to fruition yourself; no one else will do it for you, and no one will give you the money to hire someone to do it for you. The reason is very simple: if you don't believe in the commercial potential of your idea enough to give up your evenings and weekends to own a bigger chunk of it, why should anyone else believe in it enough to put their hard-earned money at risk?

Myth #9: The idea is the most important part of my business plan.

Reality: The idea is very nearly irrelevant. What matters is 1) who are your customers? 2) Why will they buy what you're selling? (Note that the reason for this could very well be something like, "Because I'm famous and I have a huge fan base and they will buy sacks of stale dog shit if it has my name on it." But in your case it will more likely be, "Because we have a great product that blows the competition out of the water.") 3) Who is on your team? and 4) What are the risks?

Myth #10: Having no competition is a good thing.

Reality: If you have no competition the most likely reason for that is that there's no money to be made. There are six billion people on this planet, and it's very unlikely that every last of them will have left a lucrative market niche completely unexploited.

Six Tips for Redirecting Highly Charged Conversations

Let us imagine a scene when we are a part of some tough and highly charged conversation.Whether we react, or slam the door or handle it tactfully ?

Here is a short but very meaningful article by Jamie S. Walters on the subject.

Hope you all will like it.


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Almost everyone, at some point, has found him or herself in a conversation that takes an unfortunate adversarial turn. Whether one of the conversation participants is stressed and has "a short fuse," or begins to forcefully protect a belief that seems to have been threatened, the conversation takes on a heated, and decidedly uncomfortable and unproductive, tone. In facilitated meetings, different opinions and conflicting beliefs are more easily navigated, thanks to meeting ground rules and skillful facilitation. But what about your average workday conversations that have neither specific agendas nor third-party facilitators? When someone "goes off" into an attack or diatribe, it can seem frightening, embarrassing, and unpredictable.

In some cases, the aggressor is simply having a "short-fuse" moment, but in other cases he or she might be purposely trying to shut down conversation by using hostile -communication tactics such as attacking, name-calling, blaming, or using forceful body language, tone and wording. Being caught off-guard by a conversation that becomes super-heated often produces one of three outcomes: both parties react to the "hot buttons" and become agitated and confrontational (or just unskillful); or one party simply backs down and shuts up, which can lead to resentment and jeopardized relationships; or a hybrid of both. There are several tactics that can be pulled, as needed, from your "interpersonal-communication skills toolbox," so that a heated dialogue can be self-facilitated or cooled off to allow for a more productive, less harmful interaction. And remember: these tactics are for heated and conflict-prone conversations, not hostile situations which threaten bodily harm (in which cases, fleeing to safety is probably the best tactic!). For other heated conversations, though, the following tactics offer pathways to more productive dialogue:

1. Stay aware and centered


In some cases, the aggressor is simply having a "short-fuse" moment, but in other cases he or she might be purposely trying to shut down conversation by using hostile -communication tactics such as attacking, name-calling, blaming, or using forceful body language, tone and wording.

Being caught off-guard by a conversation that becomes super-heated often produces one of three outcomes: both parties react to the "hot buttons" and become agitated and confrontational (or just unskillful); or one party simply backs down and shuts up, which can lead to resentment and jeopardized relationships; or a hybrid of both.

There are several tactics that can be pulled, as needed, from your "interpersonal-communication skills toolbox," so that a heated dialogue can be self-facilitated or cooled off to allow for a more productive, less harmful interaction.
And remember: these tactics are for heated and conflict-prone conversations, not hostile situations which threaten bodily harm (in which cases, fleeing to safety is probably the best tactic!). For other heated conversations, though, the following tactics offer pathways to more productive dialogue:

2) Respond, don't react

Always a good interpersonal rule, choosing to respond rather than react is to remember that we can be conscious, civil, gracious, and calm in our communications even when someone else chooses quite differently. We might choose to say nothing at all for a moment, preferring instead to listen rather than to interrupt with a "yeah, but..." or other type of reaction. In responding, we choose to listen, to inquire, and to resist our own desire to defend a position, belief, or comment. We also release our need to be right, realizing that it is sometimes the only route to a more productive dialogue (or at least one that doesn't escalate into a screaming match).

3)Inquire and validate

Another potential interpersonal tactic in the face of someone's heated reaction is to inquire and validate the intentions, beliefs, concerns, etc. that are "behind" the heated words. For example, one inquiry might be, "It sounds like we've really hit on something that's very important to you. What's most important to you about this?" The person may or may not respond, but the inquiry breaks the escalation in the "conversational thermostat" and offers an opportunity for dialogue. A potential follow-up question, if needed, is, "What's most concerning to you about this?" Once the concerns or "prized positions" behind the defensive (or aggressive) conversation are revealed, you can validate the person's right to think, feel, or hold those concerns or priorities. And then you can reorient the conversation back to the primary intentions or priorities.

A primary challenge when someone seems to be bowling you over with a caustic reaction (or even a verbal/energetic attack) is to stay fully present and centered, so that you can make good choices regarding how to respond. Staying aware and centered is like an internal conversation, where we say to ourselves, "Gosh, this seems to be an overreaction, and I don't want to go there," and then plant our feet and take a breath and go into "deep listening" mode. The opposite of staying aware and centered? Letting the force of the other person's heated communication send us into "fight or flight," where we tend to shut down and flee, or shoot off an unskillful reaction that only fuels the fire.

4) State your intention

Once the pattern of verbal escalation has been broken (by inquiry and validation, for example), you can begin to reorient the conversation to either a relatively pleasant close (even if temporarily) or shift the focus to the more important priorities of the conversation. One way to reorient is to state your positive intention for the conversation or interaction, e.g. "My intention for the conversation isn't for us to end up in a screaming match, but to calmly and respectfully exchange ideas so that we can make a decision on this project." Stating your intention -- a positive one -- can also serve as one way to break the pattern of escalation to allow for a slight "cooling off."

5) Redirect or reschedule

If you're unable to redirect the conversation back to a more productive course, it may be best to state your intention for a positive, productive conversation and suggest that "this conversation seems to be getting too heated for us to do that, so maybe we should allow for some cooling off and revisit the issue later." It may well be that this tactic, too, acts as a pattern-breaker, or it might simply allow the postponing of the conversation.

6) State your appreciation for the interaction

Regardless which outcome occurs for any particular conversation, it's good form -- and skillful communication -- to express your gratitude and appreciation for the person's time, honesty, willingness to redirect, etc. Doing so allows an open door for continued dialogue.

TWEAKING THE NOSE OF FAILURE

Sometimes, life may hit you on the head with a brick. But there are those 'hard-headed' people, who are just brick-resistant. So, if you are happy in your skin and love what you do, nothing can stop you, believes Kunal Guha.

He dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months. He didn't have a dorm room, so he slept on the floor in friend's rooms and returned coke bottles to buy food. But he didn't give up and gave in to his fascination which led him to calligraphy classes which helped him later while he was designing the first Macintosh computer . Ten years of toiling , took the garage venture to become a $2 billion company with 4000 employees. Nothing could fall apart after that, right? Think again. He got fired from the company he started himself at the age of 30, because of divergent visions with the board.The man was none other than Steve Jobs. Getting fired from Apple was one of the biggest public failures for global business case books. But as Jobs believes, "Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. Five years after being fired from Apple , I started a company named NeXT and another company named Pixar. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance ." This story tells us that if you've found what you love to do, you shouldn't let any form of setback pull you down. You will find below similar stories of dreamers who've hopped all odds and yes, tweaked the nose of failure.

THE TEST OF GREY

Nirvik Singh, President South East Asia and Chairman, South Asia of Grey Worldwide, a strong believer of 'from failure comes success and strength' , remembers, "The year was 1997. Ravi Gupta (the founderchairman of the then Trikaya Grey) had just passed away. From a well-defined path of growth and grooming, I was suddenly thrown into the pilot's seat and asked to take charge of the agency. The overall economic mood in Asia was recessive, and the mood within was no better !

" I found myself... dealing with senior management scepticism within and clients questioning our capabilities, instead of charting a path of profitability for the agency when we were burdened with financial instabilities. Adding to all, the agency was also moving from a Trikaya to a Grey management, which brought about many cultural changes and reservations. I believe my best skills came to their fore... in the face of these adversities . I always thought I was here for my advertising capabilities . But in the face of pending failure, I discovered a leadership style in me that brought out not just the best in me when the need arose, but I was able to draw out a wealth of latent talent that existed in people around me. The one thing I learnt... was that however grim the situation, never show it to the people who are looking to you to lead them and especially those among them that you believe are going to be key and instrumental in helping you through the crisis .

NEVER SAY DIE

He braved two major blows- as two of his ventures had failed due to the negative labour environment . Yes, this is Mr. Never-Say-Die , Deepak Puri, Chairman and Managing Director, Moser Baer. I don't like the word failure... rather I use disappointment . I looked at the disappointments as hurdles, which have to be jumped and cleared. Also, it is a great help that you have a strong family support backing your decision; especially my wife has been very supportive during those tough times. There were a lot of learnings... from my previous disappointments . One of the key learnings was the importance of people, IR and HR in business. I am proud to say that in over 20 plus years of Moser Baer's history, we have never had any labour related issues. I think that one of the important facets of an entrepreneur is that he is always open to learning and not just learning from disappointments .

BRAVING SWEETS

He was full of energy and enthusiasm, having freshly graduated from SIBM. He had a burning desire to do something different. But being different doesn't always spell success. Yes! We are talking about our vada pav maverick - Dheeraj Gupta. His previous vision was to brand Indian sweets like kaju katri, rasgullas and gulab jamuns . His dream failed to gain market acceptance. But he bounced back with Jumbo King Vada Pav, with the knowledge that he has to score from the first ball itself. Branding Indian sweets... meant going against the grain. Mithai was always accepted fresh, while we were trying to brand it as a packaged product. Here, shelf life was a challenge since the packaging industry in India is so basic. The product had a very niche category and hence it would have taken at least 4-5 years to gain acceptance. And I couldn't wait that long to realise my efforts. So, I had to shut it. When you've just shut a business... you're trying not to start another. But I'm big fan of "Focus" which talks about how niche products can be scaled up. I took to reading autobiographies of how ventures like McDonalds and Walmart started off with a simple idea. If you're not exactly a Tata or an Ambani… …you have to have a product which has ready acceptance and then you provide a value-add as a differentiator in the market . And when I started Jumbo King, the product was already there in the market, we just gave a value for money offer with the size differentiator and some packaging modifications.

Source Economic Times : 26.09.2006

Does higher employee empowerment improve productivity?

I believe empowerment is a good thing as long as you don't empower just anyone for a particular position.

Some people are good at organizing and getting the job done, but they may not be effective at getting other employees motivated or in line with the company's goals.

Some people are excellent at employee retention because everyone they manage absolutely loves them. But is the work getting done? Or do they gain popularity through socializing? How many of the employees a company retains are actually working?

These are serious considerations for a company that wants to stay in business.

Eventually, the people who need to be empowered are the ones who have a gift for instilling a positive go-getting attitude in others, while maintaining an open door policy for those who need additional motivation and assistance in improving job skills so they can feel good about the quality of their work.

Managers who encourage new concepts and/or ideas in how the work gets done will be pleasantly surprised at the results.

I've worked for companies who only hire or promote people who "manage through intimidation".

Because of the fact that lesser jobs, requiring little or no experience, are easy to get employees are often treated like sheep.

Over time they start acting like sheep. Basically, they just shut down and do as they're told and hope that the next raise they get will cover the cost of living and the medical plans they chose.

They also lose hope of aspiring to the next level, too, and companies will lose alot of potentially good managers.

When that happens, you lose alot of the creativity that keeps a company strong. Eventually it will inhibit growth and the business will lose steam and credibility in its particular industry.



LINDA HALL
US

First American IT company Board Meeting in India - importance of India seen in historic Perot systems board meeting

Perot Systems (NYSE: PER), the Plano, Texas-based IT, BPO and consulting concern, is expected to underscore the importance of India and the Asia-Pacific region to its long-term growth strategy at a meeting of its Board of Directors in Bangalore later this week. The meeting is historic, as it is probably the first Board meeting of a major U.S. multinational IT corporation in India. In bringing the Board to India to review its corporate strategy, Perot Systems is signaling its commitment to seizing the global opportunities in the technology services industry.

As part of that commitment, Perot Systems now holds land for future expansion of its existing facilities, which are in Bangalore, Noida and Chennai. The company has 13 acres of land in Bangalore, 25 acres in Noida and recently significantly expanded its facilities in Chennai. These significant holdings highlight the company's focus on India as a key driver for business and as a source of talent. Perot Systems is fully aware of India's competitive human resource pool and diverse skill-sets and hence plans an aggressive recruitment posture, casting a wider net and looking at a broader spectrum of colleges and universities across the country. This, coupled with land banking, will provide scalability for future growth.

Other highlights of the India visit included the announcement and official induction of Mr. Anuroop (Tony) Singh (Member, Board of Directors) and Ms. Padma Ravichander (Senior Executive - India/Asia-Pacific Region, Managing Director - Technology Services) into Perot Systems.

Commenting on the emergent business opportunities for India, Mr. Ross Perot Jr., Chairman - Perot Systems said, "The Board of Directors of Perot Systems is here as a result of the hard work that has gone into building a strong global business. The company has achieved a lot in a relatively short time frame, but in many ways we are only just beginning to reach our potential, given the opportunities before us and the strength of our capabilities -- especially in India."

Perot systems President and CEO Peter Altabef said, "Perot Systems'' India operations are a cornerstone of our emerging global delivery model of integrated IT, BPO and consulting solutions. It is important for the Board to meet here as work to provide more solutions for our customers, opportunity for our employees, and value for our shareowners."

Source : Media Release Compiled by : Abijith I P

Quarter million more BPO jobs by 2009

Call centre markets of India and the Philippines are set to see further boom through 2009, a study says.

The report, "The Future of Contact Center Outsourcing in India and the Philippines", published by Data monitor, an American analyst firm, predicts that over 2,50,000 new call center agent positions will be created in two countries by 2009.

And Philippines will be poaching the market increasingly, which India currently dominates.

USA and UK are the biggest clients in the call center industry. According to Data monitor, both India and the Philippines will see substantial growth in call centers.

With the US presidential elections are out of the way, US businesses will now be able to ramp up their offshore operations, via call centres, the report also said.

More firms are set to follow the likes of British Airways, Citibank, General Electric and HSBC, all of which have spun off a part or all of their operations to India. "Outsourcing providers are competing to run entire customer processes for their clients, rather than merely the voice-based call centre part," said Ryan Powell, call centre analyst at Datamonitor and author of the study.

"The fact that they are able to win this kind of work is testament to the efforts that have been placed on assuring quality control over the past year or so," Powell said.

Source : PTI Compiled by : Abijith I P

India following America in jobless growth – in 2003-04 Indian corporations eliminated 3.1% manufacturing jobs with healthy growth in the economy

Indian corporations eliminated 3.1% manufacturing jobs while the economy grew a healthy 6 to 7% in that time frame. While the Information technology and Business Process Outsourcing created jobs, even including these jobs, the country lost 0.6% jobs.

The fact that the country lost jobs while growing at a brisk pace is scary. In United States the labor cost is high. Automation and Productivity rise make sense. But with already deflated labor cost in India, it does not make sense to lose jobs while the economy is growing. Experts are asking questions – what will happen if India hits a recession, which is very probable later this year. According to some, if a recession hits, India can lose in excess of 12% manufacturing jobs and 6% overall jobs. If the Western nations go into recession at the same time, outsourcing industry can actually lose a staggering 38% jobs and the country can lose close to 46% jobs. Hopefully nothing like that will happen. But just focusing and servicing on IT and Business Process Outsourcing can be catastrophic.

According to media reports in India, all is not that gloomy.

The services sector, in particular, created plenty of jobs, particularly in software and private banks. IT companies in software, hardware and data sourcing, created more jobs than any other sector: 26 IT companies increased their staff strength by 45,872 or 39.5 per cent, taking the headcount in the IT industry to 161,882 in 2003-04.

Private banks, which are expanding their retail business reach, added 5,551 employees.

Infosys Technologies remained the largest single recruiter in 2003-04, adding 7,988 IT engineers and managerial staff. Wipro added 7,422 employees, while TCS increased its headcount by 4,607 to 30,121.

Satyam Computer and HCL Technologies increased their manpower by over 4,000 each, while Digital GlobalSoft and ICICI Bank increased their staff strength by over 2,500 each.

Source : Indiadaily.com - Sunil Sen Compiled by : Abijith I P

Indian companies start providing technical know how for Pakistani BPO and IT companies – start of a new trend!

A midsize IT and BPO Company from Mumbai has entered into an agreement with a Pakistani firm to set up a call center in Pakistan.

According to media sources, Mumbai-based Spanco Telesystems and Solutions will help Millennium Software of Pakistan to set up and manage the call centre in Karachi for the latter's international and domestic customers. The call centre will provide complete customer relations management (CRM) solutions for Pizza Hut in Pakistan.

"We will provide know-how for setting up the call centre and also advise Millennium Software for operations, human resource practices and training," Ketan Choksi, chief financial officer of Spanco Telesystems, said.

"As the relationship matures between the two companies in the coming years, we will also look into the possibility of expanding the areas of business cooperation," he added.

This is not an isolated case. Many Pakistani companies are looking at Indian companies to provide the technical know how to jump ahead in the field of IT, call center operations and BPO in general.

Source : Indiadaily.com - Prabeer Laha Compiled by : Abijith I P

Outsourcing's Next Phase Has Begun

Outsourcing in India has reached a near-term peak, and meaningful expansion from this point forward will result in higher costs and lower-quality delivery. Business leaders in Asia have been saying such things to one another for months now. Today, we are seeing deliberate action to move capacity from India to next-step destinations like the Philippines, China and Vietnam.

Even major business publications have picked up on the evolving situation. Both Forbes ("India: Good Help Is Hard to Find") and BusinessWeek ("India's IT Challenge") recently published feature articles that directly address the growing problems in India and the viability of the next-step destination countries.

Looking at current events in the Philippines, we can get a better idea what is going on. Sykes, a large U.S.-based contact center and IT support organization, has operations in both India and the Philippines. The company said it would shift much of its Indian capacity to the Philippines, where it already has 7,000 employees. "We moved calls to other facilities in Asia to get a higher rate of return," was the official statement from Dan Hernandez, Sykes'' vice president for global strategies. But knowledgeable observers in the region say that the rate of return differential must be large for a company of Sykes'' size and prominence to forgo India after already putting capacity in place.

Ambergris Solutions is another large contact center organization with operations in the Philippines. The company just received a $43.5 million investment through Telus International, a Canada-based global IT provider. Jim Evans, who played the key local role in coordinating the deal, says his company wanted a "strategic investment" in the outsourcing industry in Asia, and the Philippines offered the best long-term opportunity given all the options, including India.

As Asia-Pacific vice president for global business-to-business services provider GXS, Victor Lee oversees the professional and customer services operations in the region. His company made the decision to direct functions with a strong customer component to the Philippines because of better economics and results there. His company's analysis also indicated that costs were increasing disproportionately in India. As well, Lee feels that "having product development in India and professional and customer services in Philippines reduces risks."

More outspoken than most, Rick McGonegal is clear that India won''t be part of his company's plans for the foreseeable future. He is the managing director of RCG Information Technology, another good-size IT provider. The company already has a strong offshore presence in the Philippines and has assessed the Asia-Pacific region for future expansion. India, he feels, is already too crowded, with numerous companies all scrambling to hire from each other. The result is destructively high staff turnover rates, mounting salary costs and poorer English communications skills compared with that available in the Philippines. He also cited overstretched infrastructure in India as a further reason RCG wouldn''t consider this destination at present. According to McGonegal, his company has its "radar set on Vietnam and China" should its current best option of the Philippines give way.

Others that appear to be moving work to the Philippines include Hewitt, which has just started hiring staff for its newly commissioned business process outsourcing facility, and HSBC, the global banking organization, which got its BPO under way a few months ago. I am currently meeting with numerous early-stage entrants to the Philippines -- more than at anytime during the past three years.

As another anecdote, I spoke recently to the Texas-based global recruitment manager of a multinational technology company who needed help attracting Indians living in the U.S. and Canada to jobs back in India. This is no surprise, since there is strong demand for returnee management talent. But this fellow wasn''t looking for managers; he was looking for individual contributors with three years of Java/C++ experience -- a core skill that was once available in seemingly infinite quantities. He described, with great exasperation, the challenges his company faced hiring such people within India these days.


Long Live the King

No one is saying that the king of outsourcing will lose its dominance or its long-term attractiveness as an outsourcing destination. India created the offshore outsourcing model, and it will continue driving the industry forward because of its huge size and the remarkable competence of its managers.

If India does experience slower growth because of constrained resources in the near term, it is only because of its tremendous success over the past few years. India's recent hiring growth has been roughly double that of the crazy dot-com boom times in North America. So, current alleged constraints aren''t indicative of weakness but of great success.

Besides, while rising costs may be a big deal to business leaders who have to somehow budget for them, they probably don''t warrant the same degree of concern for individual workers, who see their paychecks rise by 30% from a well-timed job change.

If countries like the Philippines and Vietnam are better options today, it's only because they have been less successful at developing and attracting quality outsourcing employers in the past. The pioneering accomplishments made by India have now opened the door for these countries to receive their share of the blessings. And as for India, we can be sure it will soon be back stronger than ever.


Source : Richard Mills, CFA, is director of executive search firm Chalre Associates, based in Manila Compiled by : Abijith I P

Unisys and Cognizant to add 10,500 more to their India outsourcing workforce

IT services major Cognizant Technology Solutions, today said it would hire 6500 people in the next nine months and announced that its Chinese centre would start operations in April. Addressing a news conference here, Lakshmi Narayanan, President and CEO, Cognizant, said the company planned to add 7,200 employees in the 2005 calender year, of which 85 per cent would be employed at its software development centres in India. "During the first two-and-a-half months of this calender, we have hired 700 people. In the remaining months, we will add another 6,500 people," he said, adding that the total employee strength of the company would exceed 22,500 by December 31, 2005. In 2004, Cognizant hired 6000 people. On the Chinese operations, Narayanan said the company's new development centre at Shanghai would commence operations next month. About six Chinese persons are currently undergoing training in Cognizant's Chennai office. Narayanan said about 25 local people would manage the facility. In 2007-08, Cognizant would consider ramping up its operations in China, he said. On the revenue front, he said Cognizant was aiming at USD 845 million for the 2005 calender, a growth of 44 per cent compared to 2004.
American IT services and product firm Unisys Corporation plans to ramp up its India workforce, including with its partners, to 4,500 by 2008, up from the existing 1,150 professionals, Unisys officials said on Monday. "Unisys has sourced globally for more than 25 years. Our current expansion in India is an extension of this strategy and is integral to growing our global capabilities," Unisys Chairman Lawrence A Weinbach said at the launch of its 1,000 seat new building in the city. Unisys outsources software work with four Indian partners - Hexaware, Caritor, NIIT and Tata Infotech - who jointly employ about 1,000 people. "The partners will add 1,000 more people while we will hire 1,000 more people in 2005," Unisys India Managing Director Mukul Agrawal said. He said Unisys has a roadmap to reach a strength of 4,500 people by 2008, which includes 2,500 people at its captive centre. "India offers lower cost of operations and there is a demand from our clients to move work to offshore locations," Unisys Global Sourcing Vice President Cal Killen said. Unisys last April said it would invest $180 million (Rs 810 crore) in India till 2008 and it has spent $10 million on the new facility, officials said. Unisys India will provide end-to-end IT services for its global customers, besides technical help desk support, BPO and IT sourcing.

Source : Media Release Compiled by : Abijith I P

Oracle and Peoplesoft operations in India to be merged by June

Integration of operations of Oracle and PeopleSoft in India will be completed by the end of June this year.

"Full integration of operations of Oracle and PeopleSoft will be done by June end," Derek Williams, Oracle's Executive Vice-president for Asia-Pacific, said in a conference call.

Oracle had acquired PeopleSoft late last year and both companies have significant operations in India.

"All the operations of the two companies in India will be integrated by June end," a company spokesperson said.

So far, the merger of six of the 26 offices of both companies in Asia-Pacific has been completed.

After the merger, Oracle retained more than 75 per cent of the sales, marketing, consulting and back office staff of PeopleSoft in Asia-Pacific.

On the support and development side, the company has retained 90 per cent of the staff.

Going forward, Oracle sees India, China and Australia as key growth markets in Asia-Pacific.

"India is an important market for us and we continue to invest heavily in it. Development centres in India are churning out as many patents as the ones in the US," he said.

For growth, the company plans to focus on quality and execution and concentrate on financial sector, manufacturing, government, education, media, telecom and retail.

The focus for Oracle worldwide is business application software market where it wants to get the better of SAP.
Through acquisition of PeopleSoft and Retek it is building scale and solutions to take on the German giant.
Williams said Oracle has done well against SAP in India and made good progress.

"We are pleased with our strategy in India in application space," he said.

Source : PTI Compiled by : Abijith I P

Need for reengineering IT outsourcing – will TCS and Satyam chiefs elected as NASSCOM leaders be able to save Indian outsourcing boom?

What happens when a technology become dinosaur? Yes we call it the legacy system. India’s IT outsourcing has become a genuine “vintage car” – better put a legacy system waiting for a complete reengineering. The lack of talent, rising prices and lack of innovative products is hitting Indian IT companies hard. How long can you survive on exploiting cheap labor opines experts and International outsourcing pundits.

Indian IT needs new leadership. Otherwise India IT Outsourcing Inc. will face the same stagnation that Microsoft faces. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) chief S. Ramadorai was on Thursday appointed chairman of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), the country's IT industry umbrella group. B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Hyderabad-based software maker Satyam Computer Services, was appointed vice chairman of Nasscom for fiscal 2005-06. The million dollar question is can these old guns who created the legacy of “taking someone else’s requirements and sit and write code blindly” be able to guide India into the next phase of software engineering?

In Europe and America, Oracle (Peoplesoft) and SAP faces a strange newborn competition from smaller companies that they never thought about. Large back office processing systems based on large traditional databases are being challenged by smaller Web based tools from companies one hundredth the size. India’s outsourcing will be now slowly replaced by US and European companies that have mastered the techniques of software engineering productivity in the last few years. Three or four very talented software engineers who also understand business and systems analysis can replace fifty Indian coders. The software engineering field is finally going through the maturity process where coding and traditional testing is replaced with business and systems analysis driven system generation through “configurations”. The new technology is astounding and will employ far less people but those who will work as software engineers will make four times what they make today.

Can Ramadorai of TCS and Raju of Satyam provide that kind of forward looking leadership as India faces the competition storm from all directions? Experts say these legacy systems reengineering experts will provide traditional leadership but will need others in their team to really compete with smaller and sharper companies from America and Europe.

Source : IndiaDaily.com Compiled By : Abijith I P