IT majors chase Rs 2,500-cr railways’ outsourcing deal

Tech firms TCS and Wipro, apart from several others, are in pursuit of up to Rs 2,500-crore outsourcing contract at Indian Railways, as the world’s biggest civilian employer plans to procure a human resource management system (HRMS) and other modules for integrating and automating functions of payroll, accounting and pension.

With around 1.6 million employees, Indian Railways aims to have a centralised system for managing its staff better. The organisation plans to spend around $1.5 billion over the next two to three years on technology.

“We will be coming out with a request for proposal very soon. The idea is to have built-operate-transfer (BOT) model with the vendors,” said a senior railways official. He requested anonymity because he is not authorised to talk about the project.

In order to avoid high capital investments in acquiring these solutions, railways is exploring cost-effective models such as software-as-a-service, wherein entire infrastructure and application software will be owned by vendors. “We also plan to bring performance and efficiency-linked parameters for paying these vendors,” the official added. At least two senior officials at Indian tech firms chasing this contract confirmed their interest on conditions of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to media about their companies’ business pursuits.

“It will be a PPP and the pricing will be based on the number of transactions, while the IT company will fund and manage the entire IT set-up,” one of the executives said.

Indian Railways, which is the second largest rail network in the world, also plans to outsource another contract called ‘implementation of software-aided train scheduling’, valued at around Rs 450 crore. TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Mahindra Satyam are already bidding for this contract. The project will help railways do real-time train scheduling and management with the help of a software solution.

“Wipro is already doing two pilots for Indian Railways. One is a pilot for RFID and will be rolled out in next 12-18 months. The company is doing another control charting pilot for Railways where it charts the movement of trains,” another person familiar with outsourcing contract being awarded by Railways said. Both TCS and Wipro declined to offer specific comments about these contracts.

Railways is planning to outsource three more contracts over the next few months, with each estimated to be in the range of Rs 450 crore to Rs 500 crore. Apart from the asset management contract, the railways plans to invite bids for a contract to develop and deploy a solution for automating and integrating the functions of finance and payroll and the other one for material management solution.

Post 26/11, Infosys gets elite security

IT bellwether Infosys Technologies Friday became the first private firm in India, post the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, to get security cover from the elite Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) for its sprawling campus.

"I would like to thank the central government, the home ministry, and the state government for helping us get the security services of CISF personnel," Infosys chief mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy said while welcoming a detachment of 101 troopers at the campus in Electronic City, about 15 kms from the city centre.

CISF Inspector General R.K. Mishra said: "This is for the first time since its creation in 1969 that the CISF will be providing security cover to a corporate organization. We are pleased and proud to be entrusted with the responsibility of security at Infosys."

"CISF will act as an arms support. Our main task is to delay, deny and neutralize any possible terror strike in Infosys. We'll provide unobtrusive and inclusive security cover, and regular security cover of the Infosys will be done by the existing security personnel of the company," Mishra added.

The CISF personnel will provide a 24X7 protection shield to the Indian software giant which, intelligence agencies believe, could be a target for terrorists. The detachment comprises an assistant commandant, an inspector, 12 sub-inspectors, 18 head constables and 69 constables.

Mandated with "anti-terrorist and anti-sabotage" duties, the CISF personnel will not be responsible for "watch and ward" duties that will continue to be provided by the 350 personnel of a private security firm, another CISF official said.

Infosys will be shelling out around Rs.100,000 daily for the CISF cover.

The decision to deploy the CISF for security duty at Infosys follows appeals from private industrial houses, hotels and hospitals for central security after the Nov 26-29 Mumbai carnage that claimed the lives of over 170 people, including 26 foreigners.

CISF has 79 requests pending from private establishments. These include Reliance Jamnagar Refinery, Wipro, Taj Hotel (Mumbai), Trident Hotels (eight locations), Hotel Marriott (Mumbai), Delhi Public School (three branches in Delhi), Jaypee Group of Hotels (eight locations) and energy major Torrent Powers (Ahmedabad).

"The need for security cover to vital private installations was felt following intelligence reports that Pakistan-based terrorists might try to target them by launching a surprise attack similar to the one in Mumbai," said Mishra.

Infosys board member T.V. Mohandas Pai said CISF cover would soon be given to the entire Electronic City that houses several IT companies.

"Around 100 IT companies are part of Electronic City. However, 25 big companies have agreed to bear the cost of the CISF security cover in and around Electronic City. Thereafter, Infosys is also planning to deploy CISF personnel across its various campuses, including the Mysore campus, the largest training centre of the company," Pai added.

"The CISF team is highly trained in the art of weapon handling, fighting terrorists and using latest technology to thwart any kind of terror threats. They are a bunch of young and intelligent men and we're hopeful of giving best of security cover to Infosys," Mishra said.

Govt support must to help IT achieve growth: Infosys

The government's active support is important for the country's IT sector to help achieve the Rs 70,000-crore export figure this fiscal, a top Infosys executive said on Friday.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function at the Infosys campus, Company Board Member Mohandas Pai said, Bangalore would register a growth of 20 per cent from last year's figure of Rs 58,000 crore.

To a query on states like Kerala and Orissa aggressively marketing their IT hubs, he said, government should come forward and set a target of 1,00,000 crore of software exports for the next two years. Such targets would help instilling some enthusiasm in the industry.

Infosys to start hiring from next year

IT major, Infosys Technologies Limited plans to go to campus recruitment across the country next year. Chief Executive Officer and Managing director, Infosys technologies Limited, S Gopalakrishnan told reporters on the sidelines of a CII meeting that companies which skipped campus recruitment following global economic downturn this year, are looking at training about 18,000 of their employees under the extended mode till January 2010.

The recruitment and expansion would begin early next year, he said hoping that economy will revive in second quarter of the fiscal. Economic meltdown affected the growth rate of leading IT companies including Infosys, he said.

Gopalakrishnan expected better performance of IT companies including Infosys in the first quarter results. He said the IT and ITES industry would continue to grow despite the economic slowdown and its growth rate is expected to pick up by mid next year.

Gopalakrishnan said that his company has no immediate plans to expand activities in two tier cities in Andhra Pradesh.

Infosys work for the second campus at the SEZ has already begun and is expected to be complete by next year as the campus with over 10,000 employees in Hitech city was inadequate, he said.

For IT firms, it pays to be on networking sites

Recently, a prospective buyer of information technology services posted a query for Infosys Technologies on networking site Twitter. The Infosys team that tracks the online world forwarded the query to the sales team, which got in touch with the prospective buyer. The client was pleasantly surprised with the prompt reply and awarded the contract to Infosys.

In a month, the two joint CEOs of Wipro Technologies, Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani, are expected to become active on Twitter. The IT firm agrees that leads coming from its online presence on sites such as Linkedin, Webcasts, Webinars, and others have gone up by 50 per cent.

Bangalore-based Mindtree has created a community on professional networking site Linkedin. The company uses this as positive referral traffic, which can be converted into business.

These are examples of how Indian IT companies are using networking sites —social and professional. Traditionally focused on using business-to-business (B2B) tools, these companies are using business-to-consumer (B2C) tools like networking sites to gain attention.

IT companies are not new to the virtual world, having made their presence felt in secondlife.com — a three-dimensional virtual world where registered users socialise and connect with one another. Wipro has set up a virtual lab and uses 3D technology. The company boasts of 9,000 unique visitors and uses its virtual presence to showcase its technology offerings to clients.

But moving on to sites like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook is an altogether different thing. “It is about engagement and getting insight. What it gives an organisation is participation with stakeholders, opinion sharing, and co-creation. This does not replace the need for creating awareness (branding), but it does give a huge insight on the target audience,” says Aditya Jha, assistant vice-president, marketing, Infosys. He believes that in future research on any organisation will be done online. “Those who do not join now will lose big in this segment,” he cautions.

India’s second-largest IT company has a sizeable presence in the online world. For instance, the company started its blog almost three years back. It ventured on slideshare — a presentation sharing site — 15 months ago, has had videos on Youtube for over a year, and started on Twitter nine months ago. Recently, when the company was jolted by a bus accident, it immediately posted it on Twitter.

The target audience for IT-services companies are media, analysts, potential employees and, in some instances, clients.

Jessie Paul, chief marketing officer of Wipro, agrees that these sites are typically targeted at the B2C segment, but are relevant even to IT companies. “The impact of traditional media is diminishing. Sites like Linkedin are being used by sales teams to get in touch with business people. Analysts follow you, but, most importantly, so does competition,” she says. Wipro has a community on Linkedin. Its human resources department uses the site for hiring.

Wipro started its online foray (other than having a corporate website) with secondlife.com two years ago. After that, it ventured into Youtube and joined Twitter in August last year. “We will launch our new website next month and it will have all these clubbed together. Our CEOs will also start twittering,” says Paul. The company plans to have a one-day workshop on social media for its top executives.

At the same time, lessons are being absorbed. “I think earlier the objective was not clearly defined and hence the Second Life presence did not make much of an impact. But that’s not the case now. Apart from creating communities and blogs, this medium is being used for hiring as well as for extending the CSR (corporate social responsibility) reach. Most importantly, companies are trying to monitor the negative as well as positive press. Not being at these places creates more criticism than being there,” says Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst, Gartner.

Pratheep Raj, responsible for the online marketing initiative at Mindtree, says every networking site has its own relevance. “We are using Twitter and Facebook for attracting talent and the younger crowd. Our presence on Linkedin is to get positive referral traffic.”

A Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) spokesperson agrees, “TCS Twitter, started early this year, has received overwhelming response from followers who want to know more about the company’s new initiatives. We have seen traction from analyst, opinion makers and journalists who are subscribing to news alerts.”

Infosys Hyderabad SEZ to be operational in 12 months

Infosys Technologies, the second largest software services exporter, has said one of its two special economic zones (SEZs) in Hyderabad would become operational within 12 months. The SEZs span across 440 acre and work on both of them has already begun.

In all, the company would invest about Rs 600 crore to set up new facilities at Mangalore, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram, Chandigarh and Bhubaneswar during the current financial year, according to chief financial officer S Gopalakrishnan.

“The market now is slow. We are readying ourselves to cater to client needs when the economy revives,” he said.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a CII conference here on Wednesday, Gopalakrishnan said the company would hire about 18,000 employees this financial year. “Offer letters have been issued to some of the campus recruits already and we would take some more freshers gradually.” Infosys currently employs about 10,000 people at its Hyderabad centre.

To equip entry-level employees with more competencies, the company has extended the training from three to six months before putting them to the regular work.

Meanwhile, with an eye on IT products space, Infosys has started piloting a retail product in India and other countries. The product would assist retailers with stock positions and other information, which is done manually now.

On the IT industry, the CFO said most companies impacted by the slowdown would recover in the mid-2010. "This would also increase the employment opportunities and as a result most of the companies would start recruiting around January 2010."

Infosys to start campus recruitments beginning next year

Amidst the slowdown and the general freeze on recruitment, there is some good news for students graduating next year: Infosys Technologies Limited is planning to start campus recruitment across the country beginning January 2010.

Infosys Technologies Limited chief executive officer and managing director S Gopalakrishnan while speaking to reporters after a CII meeting said that company skipped campus recruiting in view of the global economy slowdown but is now looking at training about 18,000 of its employees under the extended mode till January 2010 and has also enhanced the present training of freshers from three and a half months to six months.

Gopalakrishnan said previously the freshers were put on training in one technology but now they are training in two technologies, adding that "they are better equipped and are more flexible as they are trained in multiple skills."
He said recruitment and expansion would begin early next year and that the economy too will start looking up by the second quarter of 2010.

On the industries growth prospects he said, "The IT and ITES industry would continue to grow despite the economy slowdown and the growth rate is expected to pick up by mid next year".

Referring to the IT expansion programme in IT industry, Gopalakirshnan said during the last one decade there was rapid expansion in IT and ITES at Hyderabad and there is still potential in tier two cities like Vishakhapatnam and vijaywada keeping in view the availability of infrastructure, international connectivity and manpower.

However, he said that his company has no immediate plans to expand activities in two tier cities in Andhra Pradesh. He said that work for Infosys's second campus at the SEZ is expected to be complete by next year.

SABMiller selects Infosys to improve marketing campaigns

Software firm Infosys on Tuesday said that SABMiller, one of the world's largest brewers, has selected it to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of its marketing campaigns.

SABMiller has chosen Infosys to conduct in-store projects leveraging the Infosys shoppingTrip360 solution to analyse shopper and shelf activity around its beverage brands, helping improve the uptake of SABMiller products, an Infosys statement said.

ShoppingTrip360 was designed by Infosys as an information ecosystem, where retailers and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies like SABMiller can achieve a "truly differentiated" method of engagement with in-store shoppers and gain "greater visibility" into in-store activity.

Upon successful pilot completion in Romania, SABMiller would evaluate the results and look to roll out the Infosys solution in other key markets around the world, the statement added.

Recession-hit IT industry to recover by mid-2010: Infosys

The recession hit IT industry would show positive signs of recovery by mid-2010 and Infosys will diversify into new markets then, a top company official said here on Tuesday.

On economic slowdown Infosys Chief Executive and Managing Director Kris Gopalakrishnan told reporters, "It is better to wait and understand that the recovery is real and will sustain. The developed countries have higher GDPs, so they will have a significant impact on recovery."

Infosys is looking at new markets like China, Middle East, South America and Latin America with a host of new services.

"We have launched various new services like software as a service platform for BPO industry. The opportunities which we are looking into are in health care, utility services, government and public sector. There are opportunities in each one of them", he said.

Gopalakrishnan was here to participate in the sixth edition of HR-summit 2009, organised by NASSCOM.

On RBI's review projecting a 6.5 economic growth, he said, "I believe especially for India, growth (is) coming back. India has not been much affected (due to the meltdown)".

He said despite the country's growth rate coming down from 8-9 per cent to 5-6 per cent now, it (growth) was starting to pick up, which is a good sign for India. "This will also be a signal to other countries to start seeing some recovery."

He said Infosys was also ready for acquisition across various geographies. "We are open for geographical acquisitions as well as service based acquisitions. The key is, it should happen at the right place at right time."

TCS, Infosys Patni await clarity on ABN Amro outsourcing

Top outsourcing firms including TCS, Infosys and Patni Computer wait for more clarity at RBS-owned ABN Amro, as the management remains undecided about outsourcing deals worth $400-500 million signed by the erstwhile Dutch bank four years ago with these vendors.

In April 2005, ABN Amro had announced several contracts worth nearly $2.5 billion, due to be renewed in 2010. While IBM had won the lion’s share of the deal (around $2 billion) for managing the bank’s servers, desktops and other IT infrastructure, Accenture, TCS, Infosys and Patni shared $400-500 million worth of contracts for software application, development and maintenance.

At least three people familiar with the sourcing decisions at ABN Amro told ET that while RBS is yet to take a call on whether it wants to integrate its technology and business systems with ABN Amro, there is a definite move to shrink the Dutch bank’s operations through a sale, which will bring down the outsourcing revenues for these vendors as well.

“It’s not business as usual. We are told it could take another few months before any clarity emerges. The 2010 renewal is not the only issue. The business seems to be getting smaller,” said a senior executive at one of the top tech firms serving ABN Amro. He requested anonymity because he is not authorised to speak about customer engagements.

Experts like Bob McDowall of Tower Group say RBS, which is now a nationalised bank in the UK, is under pressure to sell assets outside of UK. “IT integration (with ABN Amro) has effectively ceased. RBS certainly will not be planning IT integration initiatives that will make a sale or disposal of the ABN Amro businesses more difficult,” he said. “I would suggest that the longer-term prospects for the contract will depend on when and who acquires the relevant businesses in ABN Amro supported by the outsourcing contracts,” he added.

Officials at Infosys and TCS declined to offer customer-specific comments.

RBS, which has an annual IT budget of $3-4 billion, too is in the process of reviewing its businesses. Some experts say RBS will actually be looking at outsourcing in a big way to achieve these efficiencies after the strategic review is over.

“Cost has become more important for RBS now in the wake of the economic slowdown and there is a greater focus on outsourcing,” said Vikram Gulati, director at outsourcing advisory firm Quantum Step. An RBS spokeswoman confirmed that her bank continues to look at outsourcing to India.

“India is already a major centre for the group and is our third-largest employment centre. As a result of our acquisition of ABN Amro, we now employ 8,000 people in India serving our operations globally. Last year we have been progressing with work to integrate the two businesses and develop all our centres in the UK, India and across the globe,” the RBS spokeswoman said.

TCS, Infy, Wipro among top 10 global service providers

Even in a recession-hit market where clients are cutting outsourcing budgets, Indian firms such as TCS, Infy, Wipro, HCL and Tata Communications have won large outsourcing deals this year placing them among the top 10 global service providers, on contract value terms.

Even though the total contract value of awarded outsourcing deals fell by 22% to $40.2 billion in the first six months of this year, Indian tech firms continued to compete neck and neck with the global biggies such as IBM, Accenture, HP/EDS, CSC, shows data from TPI. TPI is the largest sourcing data and advisory firm and measures commercial outsourcing contracts valued at $25 million or more.

Indian firms dominated the information technology outsourcing (ITO) segment ($33.2 billion) split into application, development & maintenance (ADM) and infrastructure segments.

Among the desi firms, the top deal winners were Cognizant, Infosys, HCL, TCS and Wipro featuring in the ADM section. HCL and Wipro were again listed among the top 10 infrastructure deal winners, TPI said.

“Retail, diversified financials, transport, and network telecom services provided strength to the ITO market. TCS was the top vendor to win deals in three of these markets, while Infosys appeared as one of the top vendors in the Americas and the APAC region,” HSBC IT analyst Yogesh Aggarwal said.

Tata Com, only Indian firm among network service bigwigs such as AT&T, BT, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens, grabbed a place amongst top 10 club in a segment where deals worth $13.4 billion were awarded till June.

While the broader BPO market remained weak, experts believe Indian vendors relied on client mining, rather than winning new mega-accounts. Infy, that employs 16,700 people in its BPO division, was among the top 10 BPO service providers in the H1 of 2009, wherein globally contracts worth $7 billion were awarded to the likes of Capita, Perot Systems, Xerox, RR Donnelley and Johnson Controls.

Global IT contracts dip 22% in First Half

Even in a recession-hit market where clients are cutting outsourcing budgets, Indian firms such as TCS, Infy, Wipro, HCL and Tata Communications have won large outsourcing deals this year placing them among the top 10 global service providers — on contract value terms.

Even though the total contract value of awarded outsourcing deals fell by 22% to $40.2 billion in the first six months of this year, Indian tech firms continued to compete neck and neck with the global biggies such as IBM, Accenture, HP/EDS, CSC, shows data from TPI. TPI is the largest sourcing data and advisory firm and measures commercial outsourcing contracts valued at $25 million or more.

Indian firms dominated the information technology outsourcing (ITO) segment ($33.2 billion) split into application, development & maintenance (ADM) and infrastructure segments.

Among the desi firms, the top deal winners were Cognizant, Infosys, HCL, TCS and Wipro featuring in the ADM section. HCL and Wipro were again listed among the top 10 infrastructure deal winners, TPI said. “Retail, diversified financials, transport, and network telecom services provided strength to the ITO market. TCS was the top vendor to win deals in three of these markets, while Infosys appeared as one of the top vendors in the Americas and the APAC region,” HSBC IT analyst Yogesh Aggarwal said.

Tata Com — only Indian firm among network service bigwigs such as AT&T, BT, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens — grabbed a place amongst top 10 club in a segment where deals worth $13.4 billion were awarded till June.

While the broader BPO market remained weak, experts believe Indian vendors relied on client mining, rather than winning new mega-accounts. Infy, that employs 16,700 people in its BPO division, was among the top 10 BPO service providers in the H1 of 2009, wherein globally contracts worth $7 billion were awarded to the likes of Capita, Perot Systems, Xerox, RR Donnelley and Johnson Controls.

Campus Recruitments: IT cos freeze recruitments before final semester

The days of goofing off in the last year of college after getting job placements in the penultimate academic year are over for students.

The IT industry, the biggest recruiter in colleges, has decided to visit campuses only in the final semester leaving students with no choice but to study hard even in their last year.

Most IT companies have so far been making offers at least a year or so before graduation, prompting students to take it easy in their final year. But not any more.

“All our member companies have unanimously taken this decision. The change is not only for this year, it is permanent,” said Som Mittal, president of software industry body Nasscom. The decision taken by Nasscom is unlikely to be reversed even if demand picks up. In fact, the trend may even catch up with companies outside the IT industry.

Nasscom has sent a communication to industry associations, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), which have in turn circulated it among their members.

The IT industry hired 2,26,614 people in 2008-09, and an even bigger number 3,89,000 in the previous year. In the last few quarters of 2008-09 and in the current year, the slowdown has caused the industry to recruit less and also extend joining dates for freshers. The uncertainity in demand has made it hard for IT firms to forecast how many employees they would need to meet their future requirements.

Some students who have graduated in 2008 and have been made job offers are yet to join companies as uncertain demand has made it hard for companies to predict the number of employees they will need in the coming year.

“WE felt it would be better if we go to campuses in the eighth semester when we would be in a better position to understand what the demand would be,” Ajoy Mukherjee, Global Head - Human Resources, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), said.

TCS, which interacts annually with the heads of some of the top management and engineering colleges, said the colleges were agreeable to it.

“That’s the kind of feedback we were getting from the institutes also. They felt students tend to relax once they have got a job and focus less on studies. Trainee offers were being done a year in advance. For example, the students we made offers to last year will be joining us this year,” added Mr Mukherjee.

“It is better for the companies and for the students,” said Infosys Technologies board member and director-human resources, Mohandas Pai. He said Infosys had communicated its decision to all the 500-600 colleges it visits . “I cannot comment on how many colleges we will exactly visit. All I can say is that the colleges are happy,” he said.

According to Mr Mittal, companies were hiring almost three years ahead of demand as they were visiting campuses in the fifth semester (around the third year) of engineering.

After the students graduate, it takes approximately another year before they become productive because they have to undergo training before being assigned any client projects.

No cost-cutting in critical areas: Infosys

The Indian IT industry, which has grown rapidly due to innovation and low cost products, has not reduced strategic investment despite cutting costs, Infosys Technologies Chief Executive and Managing Director S Gopalakrishnan said.

Addressing a session on 'Role of Innovation in an Economic Downturn', organised by CII, he said that IT industry was still on a strong footing and bound to grow with more investment in research and development (R&D).

"We invest more in new services, value additions, new solutions and products, so that even if they don't pay now, they will pay later on. Though radical innovation is time consuming, it will definitely pay in the longer run," he said.

Though Indian companies were focusing on process innovations, they should switch over to product innovations, he said, adding Universities should also focus on R&D.

Indian companies were also buying companies located in the developed countries. This also helped them market their products globally and would also help to accelerate growth. "They can be successful and make a significant impact if they focus on new products and innovations also," he said.

Indian IT cos bid against MNC rivals for $1-bn BP deals

India’s offshore outsourcing firms, including TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Mahindra Satyam, have locked horns with MNC rivals IBM and Accenture for up to $1 billion worth of outsourcing contracts to be awarded in August by British Petroleum (BP).

BP, which currently outsources a majority of its application development, system integration and infrastructure management projects to almost 30 suppliers including IBM, Accenture, Mahindra Satyam and Infosys, wants to bring down its IT costs by up to 30% by working with fewer vendors handling more work, at lower rates.

“Every BP business unit at BP was running its IT operations separately, with a different set of suppliers. This led to complexity and a higher cost of operations. With this consolidation, BP now wants to work with not more than six vendors globally,” said a UK-based expert familiar with BP’s sourcing strategy. He requested anonymity as he is not authorised to comment about the contracts.

When contacted by ET last week, a BP spokesman confirmed that the supplier review is nearing its end. “Yes, we have been reviewing our strategic IT providers, and are getting close to the end of that process, but I can’t confirm numbers of the current or possible future providers,” said spokesman Robert Wine.

Sridhar Vedala, MD of sourcing advisory firm Quantum Step, says customers are now breaking down their requirements into infrastructure management, application development and maintenance, and are selecting vendors according to their competencies. “A few years ago, ABN Amro undertook a similar exercise,” he added.

While customers in the US, the top market for Indian companies, are scaling back on outsourcing, British firms will spend around $15.6 billion this year, according to research firm Ovum-Datamonitor.

While Mahindra Satyam counts BP as one of its $40-50 million customers, Accenture and IBM currently have a lion’s share of the outsourcing pie, estimated to be anywhere between $300 million and $400 million.

Alcatel-Lucent hives off unit to Infosys

World's largest maker of fixed-line networks Alcatel-Lucent is planning to hive off one of its R&D units to Indian IT major Infosys by the end of August this year, according to a report published in a business daily.

According to the news report, earlier this month, employees working with Alcatel-Lucent's `Mature R&D’ division in Chennai were informed of the divestment.

Presently the division has close to 591 employees that work in the area of testing. Of these, while approximately 175 are based out of India, the rest of the employees are spread across in France (59), Germany (72), Romania (101), Morocco (22), Egypt (10) and China (152), says the report.

The employees have been told that they will be working with Infosys for a period of 18 months after which the IT major can take a decision on their further retention.

Alcatel-Lucent is said to be considering both outsourcing and divestment of its non-core areas. In an email sent to its employees, dated June 18, the company said: “Negotiations are on going with three potential partners: HCL, Infosys and Wipro. The outsourcing project currently concerns E10/MGC 10 and S12/MGC 12 (the R&D division). Areas not involved are: the regional front office, product management, the technical interface teams, purchasing and supply chains.”

The email was reportedly sent by the company after a European committee meeting.

Infosys opens BPO branch in Philippines with Cisco

Infosys BPO Ltd., a business process outsourcing (BPO) subsidiary of Infosys Technologies Ltd., has announced the recent opening of its first BPO branch in the Philippines. This new center offers collaboration technologies from Cisco .

Such technologies include the so-called, “Unified Contact Center” solution to deliver intelligent call routing; call treatment; network-to-desktop computer telephony integration, also known as “CTI” and multichannel contact management over an IP infrastructure.

According to Madhusudan Menon, center head, Infosys Philippines, "Through this project, Infosys BPO Philippines may emerge as one of the largest Cisco Unified Contact Center implementations by the end of the year."

This new branch extends the global relationship between Infosys BPO and Cisco, which got its start in India in 2002 and now includes six geographic delivery centers throughout the world.

Infosys wins 10-year govt contract

Infosys Technologies Ltd, India's No. 2 software services exporter, said on Tuesday that it has won a contract to design, develop and support a portal for the ministry of commerce and industry. The duration of the contract is 10 years, Infosys said in a statement.

The eBiz Project is among the 27 Central, State and Integrated Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) under the National E-Governance Plan (NEGP) of the Government of India.

The scope of work under this agreement includes designing and developing the eBiz platform, establishing the support IT infrastructure, implementing, maintaining and expanding the eBiz solution and services for the next 10 years. As part of the project, Infosys will also undertake training, workshops, promotion and awareness campaigns.

Through the eBiz project, the Government of India aims to create a customer-centric environment, providing the business community convenient and speedy access to information and services. This ‘single window’ approach will cater to the requirements of businesses for government-to-business (G2B) services throughout the business life cycle, namely through the pre-establishment, commencement, operations, expansion and when required, closure stages of the business. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Infosys bags Indian Railways coach management project

In a development which will strengthen its role in the domestic IT outsourcing market, India’s second-largest IT services company, Infosys Technologies, has bagged a pilot project to roll out an Integrated Coach Management System (ICMS) for the Indian Railways.

Even though the initial (pilot) project cost is small, the success of the pilot will determine the time-frame as to when the railways will go in for floating the final tender for the project, which is estimated to be about Rs 210 crore.

Infosys, according to sources close to the development, bagged the pilot project emerging as the lowest bidder (L1) in a competitive bidding process, which was attended by most Indian IT services firms and global companies like Siemens and IFS.

As per the project, Infosys is rolling out the ICMS in three different locations, including Waltair (Visakhapatnam), Khurda Road and Sambalpur in Orissa, with the cost expected to be around Rs 3.5-4 crore. Based on the success of the pilot project, the railways ministry is planning to float the final tender for rolling out ICMS in about 50-60 different centres and coaching depots in the country by the end of the current fiscal.

“However, based on their competitive pricing and the first mover’s advantage, Infosys will definitely be a preferred vendor for the project, as and when the railways decides to implement the project,” an industry source told Business Standard. When contacted, a top official at Infosys said the company was planning to launch the ICMS in three different locations “shortly”. He, however, declined to give any further details about the project.

The ICMS is expected to use multiple technology stacks, including GPS, RFID and ERP, to automate the maintenance and repairing of railway coaches at different depots and to track the coaches which require timely maintenance. The system will have three different modules, including punctuality, stock and time-tabling. The stock module will monitor each coach, ranging from running of trains to undertaking of periodic maintenance, while the punctuality module aims at monitoring running of coaching trains as per schedule.

This will also help in providing real-time online information to passengers regarding the running of trains. By using the tabling module, the railways management can identify various other areas of improvement, like introduction of new trains and extension of existing trains.

Infosys, which started focussing on the domestic market by setting up a separate business unit almost a year ago, has so far bagged three projects in the government sector in the country. Earlier, the company had bagged a project to set up and manage a central processing centre (CPC) for the Income Tax Department and a project from the Ministry of Commerce to develop an eBiz portal that will help in providing one-stop services to the industry.

Infosys Finacle bags two major deals for direct banking sol

Infosys' product division, which markets Finacle banking solutions, has launched a direct banking software product and has bagged two major clients, including one in Europe.

"We signed up two major deals -- one in Europe and other one in North America," Infosys Technologies (Finacle) Head Haragopal M said. In this kind of market condition a solution like direct banking is compelling proposition for the advanced market, he said.

Giving a sense of the new product developed by the IT- bellwether, Haragopal said, direct banking is a comprehensive solution for banks to directly acquire, track and service customers, through the Internet, mobile or call center channels, in the complete absence of a brick and mortar infrastructure.

Built on new-generation technology, he said, it provides an platform that supports the full-fledged delivery of a comprehensive range of assets and liabilities solutions, facilitated through direct access to the customer 365 days a year.

The solution opens up an exciting new channel for banks to convert prospects to profitable customers, without the support of a branch, he added.

Haragopal said, there is a great opportunity in the segment and going forward there seems to a good traction in the segment.

Besides adding to the bottomline, the product suite would help banks to provide banking services in a cost-effective manner, he said.

About the June quarter performance of Finacle, Haragopal said the revenues of the company remained flat at USD 45 million.

During the quarter, Finacle added five customers and completed the implementation of six projects.