HCL Infosystems bags Rs 240cr BSNL deal

IT firm HCL Infosystems today said it has received an order worth Rs 240 crore from BSNL to implement high-end software solution. "The company has received an order valued at Rs 240 crore from BSNL for roll out over 60,000 ERP Licenses," HCL Infosystems said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The order also includes configuration, hardware, networking, training to BSNL employees and programme management for seven years, the filing added. Shares of HCL Infosystems were trading at Rs 123.50, up 7.39 per cent in late afternoon trade on the BSE.

Pink slips, but cos still spend more on salary

The proverbial pink slip, now very much in circulation, seems to have failed to contribute to cost cutting efforts of Indian companies. On the contrary, salary components have comparatively gone up in several balance sheets.

An analysis of the total costs incurred by 215 companies of the BSE-500, who declared their fourth quarter results and whose data is available with the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) database, shows that almost 119 companies have actually seen an increase in their salary component of total costs when compared to the same quarter the previous year.

Companies which have seen a significant increase in salary component include IT bigwigs like Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services; pharma major Pfizer, Noida Toll Bridge Company (NTBC) and even the relatively new equity broking company Geojit Financial Services.

For the quarter ended March '09, the expenditure on salary and wages of these 215 companies was Rs 21,324 crore, constituting about 9.44% of total costs. In comparison, the total salary and wages for the quarter ended March '08 for the same companies was Rs 17,969 crore accounting for about 8% of the total costs. In fact, Jindal South West Holdings tops the list with an increase of almost 20 percentage points in its salary costs.

IT firm Tech Mahindra, which ranks second on the list, has actually seen its salary costs increase by about 15.25 percentage points. HCL has also seen an increase of about 8.49 percentage points in its salary costs. Both Tech Mahindra and HCL declined to comment on the reasons for the rise in salary costs. The 6.71 percentage points quarter to quarter increase in staff costs as a percentage of total expenditure of NTBC is attributed to a reduction of total expenditure caused by the co's adoption of new guidelines issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).

"The excess provision of depreciation in the earlier quarters had to be written back in the current quarter and thus the total expenditure has been reduced," says TK Banerjee, chief financial officer of NTBC. Moreover, the company has also given a 5% increment to its junior staff.

In fact, experts say the comparative increase in salary costs could be the result of companies adopting the revised AS15 accounting standard introduced by ICAI, which has resulted in a change in the valuation of retirement benefits. As per the new standard, companies will have to calculate the last salary that will be drawn by an employee and provide for pension and gratuity liability on that basis. Some of these companies being in relatively slowdown immune sectors like pharma is also one of the reasons for rising salary costs. Pharma major Pfizer, for instance, showed a quarter on quarter increase of 5.90 percentage points for the quarter ending Feb '09.

"A healthy balance sheet ensures that we have not cut back on any of our talent and employee development initiatives. We believe the key is colleague engagement. While remuneration is one of the key drivers, we are also redesigning jobs to make them more engaging for the colleagues," says Uday Mohan, HR director of Pfizer India.

What happened with Geojit Financial Services is, meanwhile, quite intriguing. While Geojit underwent a 15% reduction in the number of its employees and saw a 11% dip in the total salary cost, data shows that Geojit has actually seen a 3.33 percentage point quarter on quarter increase in their salary costs.

According to the Geojit CEO, CJ George, the predominant reason for the development is the fact that two joint ventures of the company - BNP Paribas Securities India, Mumbai, and Aloula Geojit, Dubai - began their operations in 2008-2009. "The full-year salary costs of employees in these JVs, which are substantial, were accounted in the last quarter of 2008-09. Also, during 2008-09 we expanded our branch network extensively," says George.

Human resource experts also say that many companies which recruited people in the first half of last year at high salaries have actually not let their employees go, but have kept them on the bench.

"Hence, while the sales have decreased, the salary component has increased. Also, many Indian companies only took to cost-cutting measures since January and many are yet to begin cutting their employee costs," says Kris Lakshmikanth, CEO Headhunters India.
Courtesy: TheEconomicTimes

Cognizant pips Infosys, Wipro, TCS, HCL

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. has beaten India-based competitors such as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and Infosys Technologies Ltd in terms of incremental revenues for the first time ever in the 12-month period from April 2008 till March.

The firm reported revenues of $2.9 billion (Rs14,413 crore today) for FY09, $600 million more than the revenues in FY08. Adjusted for two small acquisitions, the incremental revenues stand at $558 million.

This is higher than the incremental revenues of $487 million reported by Infosys and the $310 million (adjusted for acquisitions) reported by TCS. For perspective, these two companies are 1.6 times and 2 times the size of Cognizant, respectively. Wipro Ltd’s information technology (IT) services division, 1.5 times the size of Cognizant, reported incremental revenues of about $530 million after adjusting for revenues added through acquisitions.

HCL Technologies Ltd, which makes up the top five in terms of IT outsourcing work to India, reported incremental revenues of $220 million on an organic basis.

HCL signs outsourcing deal with UTi

Technologies has announced signing a five-year, multi-million dollar outsourcing deal with supply chain services firm UTi Worldwide. The Indian IT firm will provide applications support and maintenance and infrastructure management services to the Dutch firm.

HCL will also operate a global service desk in nine languages for UTi. The Indian IT firm didn’t disclose the value of the deal or the number of employees to be deployed on the contract. A few UTi employees will also be transferred to HCL as part of the deal but both firms refused to divulge details.

HCL BPO signs 5-yr deal with UK water utility

HCL BPO, a division of HCL Technologies, has signed a five-year deal with a Britain-based water utilities client that has around 5,000 employees. As of now, the company has less than 100 people working for the client, but it expects to add more by June-end. HCL is also in talks with four other potential water utilities in the UK and Europe as well as some energy utilities.

IT companies to hire more foreigners abroad

India’s top technology firms, including TCS, Infosys and Wipro, are preparing to increase the proportion of foreign employees in their workforce as they seek to address protectionist lobbies and position themselves as ‘job creators’ in the markets they serve.

The move comes in the wake of growing anti-offshoring sentiments in the US, the world’s biggest market for software services. While TCS aims to double its foreign workforce from the current 10,000 over the next five years, Infosys and Wipro could see non-Indians account for 10-15% of their total employee base in three to five years’ time, from around 5% now.

"It’s a strategy to reverse the trend, as we realise that it’s necessary to shed the old way of getting only Indians to do the jobs," said Pratik Kumar, corporate vice-president and HR head of Wipro. "How can you justify the fact that despite significant overseas revenues, we still have over 95% Indians on the payroll?" he added.

Wipro aims to establish another centre in a tier-two US town after its Atlanta development centre becomes fully operational in a few months from now. Over the next two years, Wipro will have around 750 US citizens working at its Atlanta centre. "We aim to undertake significant local hiring, starting this year itself," he said.

Among the top Indian technology firms, TCS employs the most number of non-Indians, accounting for almost 9% of TCS’ total workforce. Non-Indians account for around 5% of total workforce at Wipro and Infosys.

However, Mohandas Pai, HR head of India’s second biggest software firm Infosys says, despite all the hype around hiring more local workers, finding skilled professionals with adequate programming skills remains a challenge in the US and UK. "We want to double our foreign workforce, but don’t find people with adequate skills in those markets," he said.

HCL Tech follows just in time hiring policy

In order to cut the cost of training, HCL Technologies announced that it will hire people just in time of requirement rather than maintaining a bench, reports Economic Times. The company declined to give a hiring outlook for the year ahead.

The overall global headcount of the company fell by 992, to 54,026, from December to March. However, the company clarified that it has not laid off any employee.

HCL Tech not to make campus offers?

Source: indiatimes.com

To save on the cost of training, one of the leading domestic software exporter HCL Technologies said it will hire people 'just in time' of requirement rather than maintaining a bench.

HCL has been following the policy of just in time hiring, which has paid off well for the organisation, HCL Technologies CEO Vineet Nayyar said.

Declining to give a hiring outlook for the year ahead, Nayyar said the firm is unlikely to make campus offers.

"We have hardly made any campus offers... we have moved to the lateral strategy," he added.

The overall global headcount of the company fell by 992, to 54,026, from December to March. However, the company clarified that it has not laid off any employee.

During the quarter the company has made a gross addition of 2,298 employees. In the BPO services segment, however, the headcount has came down to 11,426 from 12,750 in December.

Commenting on the BPO business, he said the company is trying to move away from voice-based services to platform-based services. So, it is unlikely that the company would make new recruitments for voice-based services.

No layoff in HCL, says CEO

Software exporter HCL Technologies today said it was among the few companies which had not made any layoffs since “we anticipated the meltdown in July and applied the brakes”, CEO Mr Vineet Nayyar said. Addressing the media here today, the HCL chairman, Mr Shiv Nadar, said: “HCL’s investments in new growth engines, innovative service offerings and value centricity have helped us convert today’s challenging market environment into opportunities for growth. HCL’s leadership in the industry in having a robust growth pipeline this quarter is a proof that this strategy is paying off.”

He said the company would also repay a part of the $585 million debt it had taken for acquiring UK-based Axon last year from its current cash balance and through a fresh loan. “We had raised a debt of $585 million for acquiring Axon which is maturing in December 2009. We have a cash position of $412 million. We will pay the debt out of the cash and raise a small debt,” executive vice-president (finance), Mr Anil Chanana said.

TCS, Infy, HCL vie for biometric PAN cards in India

Over the next few months, taxpayers will start getting biometric permanent account number cards that capture their fingerprints and facial features, marking the start of an exercise the finance ministry has been talking about for at least three years.

The development has elicited huge response from the country's top information technology companies. At least seven players, including Infosys [Get Quote], HCL [Get Quote], Tata Consultancy Services [Get Quote] and its subsidiary CMC, are in the fray to develop a biometric card and the infrastructure that can handle 12 million new users annually.

Others shortlisted for the request-for-proposal stage include Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, ITI and Bharat Electronics [Get Quote].

Some of the players have negotiated tie-ups with other service providers but the details of these were not readily available.

The income tax department is pushing for a biometric card to ensure that an individual does not have more than one PAN.

The move comes at a time when the government is also working on a project for a national identity card, on the lines of the US social security number, and has already allocated Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) for it.

To begin with, the government proposes to issue biometric cards to new applicants and those seeking a re-issue. But over a period of time, old cardholders are also proposed to be enrolled into the new system.

According to documents made available to the bidders, the government intends to capture fingerprints of four fingers of an individual -- two from each hand -- and the facial image, with the eyes clearly visible. After much deliberation, the tax department has dropped plans to capture the image of the iris, a senior official said.

The bidders have also been asked to ensure that the digital image of the application and documents submitted as proof are also captured in some form.

Along with the card, there are plans to spruce up the PAN issuance infrastructure. Bidders have been asked to ensure that they set up points of service for 10 hours a day, six days a week.

A mobile facility that ensures "at-your-doorstep" service has also been planned, officials said. A call centre that works for at least 10 hours a day, six days a week, along with a national helpline number and an online facility have also been proposed.

The tax department also wants the service provider to ensure that new PAN cards are issued within 20 days.

The proposed system is being designed to handle 70 million PAN records and handle 100,000 applications a day.

There is, however, no clarity on who would bear the cost of the card, which at present costs Rs 67.

Xerox in $100M data services outsourcing deal with HCL

Xerox Corp. will pay $100 million over six years to outsource data-center services to India's HCL Technologies Ltd., a Xerox spokesman said Sunday. HCL will manage disaster-recovery preparation and consolidate Xerox's data centers in North America and Europe, said spokesman Bill McKee.

The Norwalk, Conn.-based printer and copier maker has been cutting costs and announced last year it would slash 3,000 jobs from its worldwide payroll of 57,000. McKee said the deal with HCL is not related to the restructuring. As of last October, HCL said it did business in 19 countries, with a strong manufacturing client base and a growing life sciences business. In the previous fiscal year, HCL relied on the U.S. market for 57.4 percent of its business, with more than two-thirds of revenue coming from nonfinancial services companies.

HCL bags 5-year services contract from Microsoft

HCL Technologies is learnt to have bagged a five-year IT services contract from software giant Microsoft worth close to $170 million, or Rs 848 crore.

HCL has become a strategic vendor for providing technology services to the Redmond-headquartered firm for its online services business, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. This is the third major contract bagged by HCL in the last few weeks.

HCL bags 3 year contract from M.J. Logistic

HCL Technologies (HCL), a leading global IT services provider, has entered into a three year contract with M.J. Logistic Services (MJ), a leading third-party logistics (3PL) solutions provider in India.

The contract will enable MJ to focus on its core business, manage the growing complexities of its logistics operations, reduce its cost and enhance inventory visibility.

BSNL walks out on Satyam, shifts contract to HCL Infosystems

The biggest challenge facing any buyer of Satyam Computer Services is not to stop the company from losing more contracts but to win back the confidence of customers and get new contracts and renewals.

The scam-hit firm, which is now run by a government-board, has lost out on winning a major tender from Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), in its core area of expertise, ERP implementation, according to industry sources.

The tender has been awarded to HCL Infosystems, a source close to the situation said. BSNL was reluctant to award the contract to Satyam because of the uncertainty surrounding its future although the company made a strong pitch.

Microsoft, HCL in tie-up to make affordable ERP available in India

Global IT firm Microsoft India has announced a partnership with Indian technology enabler HCL Infosystems to further augment the availability of Microsoft Dynamics NAV Business Essentials (BE) - Microsoft's ERP solution for growing businesses, across India. This partnership will expedite the process of making Microsoft's affordable ERP, NAV BE more extensively available across the country.

Satyam loses 46 customers to rival tech firms

Around 46 customers of Satyam Computer Services have moved their outsourcing contracts to rival tech firms such as TCS, Wipro, IBM and Accenture, ever since the company’s founder and chairman Ramalinga Raju admitted to a financial fraud of over $1 billion.

Potential bidders for Satyam such as Tech Mahindra, L&T, Spice and iGate are readying their strategy for taking over a majority stake in Satyam, and their financial bids will depend a lot upon the amount of business Satyam has from around over 600 existing customers, last reported during company’s financial results for quarter ended September last year.

Top customers such as semiconductor firm Applied Materials, Kansas State Bank, Telstra, Emerson, Nissan, State Farm Insurance and Sony apart from dozens others have either moved out their projects completely, or are in the process of migrating current Satyam work to other outsourcing vendors, as these clients seek to mitigate the operational risks by working with more stable vendors.

“We are waiting for more details about the number of customers existing at Satyam, and the revenue visibility at the company,” said a senior executive at one of the tech firms preparing to bid for a majority stake of Satyam.

Satyam customers are also bringing the rates down by negotiating hard with suppliers such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL. “In some cases, vendors are ready to accept contracts from Satyam customers at less than 25% rates, including transition costs,” Sabyasachi Sathyaprasad, founder of Mindplex Consulting told ET in a recent interview. Semiconductor firm Applied Materials and automaker Nissan are among top Satyam customers in discussions with TCS and others for awarding new contracts.

HCL Bags US$350M Outsourcing Contract From Reader's Digest

Indian outsourcer HCL Technologies has bagged an outsourcing contract from The Reader's Digest Association.

The contract for about US$350 million involves delivery by HCL of IT infrastructure management, application development and other services, HCL said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange on Monday.

The contract is for a period of seven years, and involves HCL hiring an undisclosed number of employees from Reader's Digest. Some of the new hires will continue to work at Reader's Digest sites, providing on-site services, said a source close to the situation.

HCL will use its global delivery centers in Poland, the U.S. and India, and on-site staff to support the operations of Reader's Digest in 45 countries and 14 languages across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, HCL said.

The company announced in January that it had bagged a five-year contract from Nokia for outsourced desktop management and help desk across 76 countries.

A number of Indian outsourcers are looking at remote infrastructure management as the next big opportunity from their mainstay business in application development and maintenance, analysts said.

Infrastructure services accounted for 15.3 percent of HCL's revenue in the fourth quarter of last year.

HCL likely to win ERP contract from BSNL

India-based IT services vendor HCL Technologies has made the lowest bid of INR 2.3 billion ($44.5m) to win a Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, BSNL, ERP project, according to the Hindu Business Line. Other IT services vendors who took part in the bidding process included Infosys, Satyam, and TCS. Infosys was the second lowest bidder with a quote of over INR 3 billion ($58m).

HCL partnered with SAP for the project because SAP was not able to bid directly because only Indian vendors were allowed to participate. The contract includes design, planning, supply, installation, customization, commissioning, training, operation, and maintenance of ERP system.

HCL likely to bag entire ERP project of BSNL

HCL Technologies is likely to bag the entire enterprise resource planning (ERP) project of Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) after the telecom validates the lowest bid of Rs 2.30 billion offered by the IT major, reports The Business Line.

Infosys Technologies emerged as a second lowest bidder in the process. Other competitors like Satyam and TCS had also expressed interest for the contract.

The project is likely to be implemented in 18 months after the selection process is complete. HCL Technologies has partnered global major SAP for the project. SAP could not directly bid for the contract because BSNL had made it compulsory that only Indian companies are allowed to participate in the bidding process.

HCL Tech gets multi-year 3.93-bln-rupee contract

HCL Technologies (HCL) announced signing an end to end IT Services engagement covering the entire IT lifecycle from transformation to integration and operations management with National Insurance Company (NIC) for a seven year period having a contract value of Rs 3.93 billion.

During the seven years engagement HCL will be responsible for setting up and managing enterprise wide IT Landscape for NIC. This will cover business process reengineering, application blueprinting and roll out of 19 applications, system integration and management services across data center, networks security and helpdesk service spanning over 1,034 branches and 10,000 end users across the country.

The project will provide NIC with the next generation IT for modernization and transformation of its business processes. This will be done by enabling its core organizational objectives like ensuring faster time to market through government norms on data storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, etc.

``Our engagement with NIC one of the largest integrated IT deals in the country, is a significant milestone in the Indian industry with its large scale business transformation focus and investment in the Indian end -to-end IT services business has enabled us to win a contract of this global size and scale,`` said Kiran Bhagwananai, senior vice president, India and Middle East HCl Technologies.