Tata Technologies inks MoU with BITS Pilani

Tata Technologies inked an agreement with Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, to design and implement specialised educational programmes for skill development of engineering professionals, students and faculty.

Tata Technologies would support the existing Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) industry interface programmes, while the latter would run specialised programmes created with expert industry perspective and inputs from Tata Technologies, according to a release.

This will lead to specific degrees of BITS through its off-campus Work Integrated Learning Programmes (WILP), it added. 

Former employees say TCS abused Australia visa

Former employees have accused Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) of abusing Australia's migrant worker visa designed to import talent to fill skills shortages.

According to a report Friday by the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC), TCS, which is India's biggest outsourcer by revenues, flouted rules outlined under the 457 visa scheme and imported cheap, foreign workers without first attempting to recruit local talent.

An anonymous former TCS employee told the ABC that if the Indian company needed a new developer, they would not perform the required step to advertise for an Australian worker. "We just contacted the local area manager and he would send a developer on the next plane from Mumbai," the employee said.

TCS, which holds multi-million dollar contracts with Australia's biggest companies, refused to comment on the allegations.

Another former employee of TCS, Hasan Mahboob, said the 457 visa scheme was overused.

"I'd certainly seen heavy use of 457 visa, starting from the very top management-level people, ro relationship managers, account managers, service delivery managers, project managers, program managers, and business analysts--all of which I question should be done by 457 visa," Mahboob said.

Sources:
http://www.zdnet.com/in/former-employees-say-tcs-abused-australia-visa-7000017191/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-20/workers-accuse-indian-it-giant-of-457-visa-abuse/4769482

TCS non-Indian employee number crosses 21,000

Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest IT services company has more that doubled the number of its non-Indian employees during the last three years.

According to the company, as on 31 March 2013, it had 21,282 non-Indians on its rolls belonging to 118 nationalities. This is an increase of about 20% over the previous years. In 2009-10, the company employed 9,536 foreign nationals.

The company said the highest number of its non-Indian employees are Britishers with a share of close to 19% followed by Americans at 15.4%. About 10% of its non-Indian employees are from China where TCS has a strong presence, the Mumbai-based company said in its annual report for 2012-13.

TCS also said that the company has improved the ratio of women in its total workforce to 32.40% at the end of FY13 as compared to 31.60% as on March 31, 2012. "Our progressive policies and customised programmes such as executive education programme for women in mid-management, interactive forums and women discussion circles address the aspirations and needs of our women employees," it added in the report.
Source: Business-Standard

TCS, HCL among front-runners for Pepsi outsourcing contract

Contract, held by HP, up for renewal later this year; may be split and handed out to more than one service provider. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and HCL Technologies Ltd are among the front-runners to win an outsourcing contract from PepsiCo Inc. valued at about $500 million (around Rs.2,925 crore today), according to two people familiar with the development.

The contract, held by Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), will be up for renewal later this year. It is likely to be split and handed out to more than one service provider mostly for handling infrastructure management services, the two people said, requesting anonymity as they are not authorized to discuss these details.

Pepsi had signed the contract with HP, the world’s largest computer firm, in 2006 for a total value of $100 million for managing its information technology (IT) and data centre operations, according to outsourcing advisory firm Everest Group. Pepsi also has outsourcing agreements with International Business Machines Corp., or IBM, which runs the finance and administration processes of the soft drink maker’s Indian arm.
Source: LiveMint

TCS boss' salary to rise by half

CEO and MD N Chandrasekaran will now get a monthly salary of Rs 15,00,000 with effect from April 1, 2014. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest information technology services firm, has decided to revise the monthly salary of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director N Chandrasekaran by half to Rs 15 lakh. The revised salary will be applicable with effect from April 1 next year.

“Taking into consideration, the increased business activities of the company and the responsibilities cast on N Chandrasekaran, the Board has revised his maximum limit of salary from Rs 10,00,000 a month to Rs 15,00,000 a month, with effect from April 1, 2014,” the company said in its annual report for 2012-13. It also said the proportionate increase would also be applicable to the other benefits he was getting.

Infosys, TCS, Sify bag Postal Department's technology projects

The Department of Post (DoP) has issued Letters of Intent (LoIs) to Infosys, TCS, Sify and Reliance Communications Infrastructure for different technology advancement projects.

"Department is trying to induct technology in a big way. There are eight RFPs (Request for Proposal) we have floated and issued Letter of Intent in five (projects) to companies which include Infosys, TCS, Sify and Reliance," Secretary (Posts) Manjula Parasher told reporters here.

The Department has got approval of Rs 1,877.2 crore to be spend across these projects over period of two years and will seek additional funds when the need arises.

TCS to provide banking solution for Malaysia's AmBank

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) today said Malaysia-based financial services group AmBank has decided to deploy the banking solution of the Indian software major.

This integrated banking suite, spanning conventional and Islamic banking, will support both retail banking and lending functionalities, TCS said in a statement .

By deploying 'TCS BaNCS', AmBank will see its banking business expand into new areas, while enabling flexible development and the scalability to meet market and regulatory needs, it added.

IT cos like Infosys, HCL Tech, Cognizant, Wipro pamper placement officers for best talent

Once reserved for market analysts and key clients, Indian information technology companies are now pampering college placement officers by taking them on domestic and foreign trips as they seek to hire the best talent from Indian campuses ahead of competition.

Over the years Cognizant has been taking placement officers to cities like Bangkok and Dubai while others have been holding their offsites within their campuses. Infosys has also joined the race this year, although with a modest start in domestic locations.

Indian IT firms depend on campus recruits for a bulk of their hiring every year, making job offers to thousands of students every year. In this financial year for instance, Infosys is hiring over 20,000 students from campus while TCS is hiring over 30,000.

Such events, some analysts say are part of efforts to get the best interview slots when hiring from colleges. Infosys, which insiders say lost out in the talent scramble because it failed to get the socalled "slot zero" has now started Samvaad 2012, where the Bangalore-based firm hosts placement officers in Mysore, Pune, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, and Chandigarh.

Some 310 placement heads from a similar number of engineering institutions across the country are being invited, according to a company spokesperson. Through the event, Infosys seeks to impart skills, including "negotiation skills" to help these placement officers in their current roles.

Tata Communications to hire 1,200 new staff, may raise debt

Tata Communications will recruit an extra 1,200 staff over the next 12 months in its outsourcing, sales and engineering divisions as it tries to turn around nearly three years of losses, the firm's CEO said on Wednesday.

The operator will also consider upping its debt if the potential returns justify it, Vinod Kumar, Tata Communications chief executive, told Reuters. Kumar declined to comment on the prospects of Tata buying Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW).

Tata said in a regulatory filing on March 1 its plans for an all-cash bid for CWW were "at a very preliminary stage", adding it would decide on whether to make an offer by March 29.

TCS pips Infy as the most valued IT company in India

Country's top software exporter TCS today toppled its main rival Infosys Technologies as the most valued IT company in the country.

Shares of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) rallied over 6 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange, taking its market capitalisation to Rs 1.62 lakh crore, higher by Rs 3,470 crore than Infosys' Rs 1.59 lakh crore valuation.

The Tata Group company TCS is now the fourth most valued company in the country. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries is the most valued firm with market valuation of Rs 3.47 lakh crore as of today, followed by state-run ONGC and NTPC in that order. Infosys is at the fifth place in the top group.

TCS's over 24 per cent rise in April-June quarter profit at Rs 1,906 crore saw it shares surging on BSE. The counter closed up by a whopping 6.16 per cent, the highest among Sensex stocks.

TCS looks to generous variable pay to keep staff

The country’s biggest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which competes with rivals Infosys Technologies and Wipro for talent, will bank on a generous quarterly variable pay linked to the company’s performance to retain talent, a senior executive said.

TCS battles rising employee churn as demand for IT services revives, and unlike Infosys and Wipro, does not have the benefit of Esops as a tool to retain employees. “We have the variable option, which we pay out at the end of the quarter. Last year, in three quarters, we paid more than 100%. Two quarters (Q2 and Q3), we gave out 150% and in the fourth quarter we gave 125% of the variable.

In the first quarter of 2010-11, we have given 100%, which is the full variable. That is one kind of lever that we have which peers don’t,” Ajoy Mukherjee, global head, (HR), TCS, told ET.

The Tata group firm does not have an Esop policy and instead compensates senior executives with higher pay. Last month, Infosys issued five equity shares to every employee and one more share for every year in the company to its lakh-plus staff to ring in its 30th anniversary.

TCS to hire 30,000 in next fiscal

IT major, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), today said that its growth momentum in the last quarter of this fiscal would be better than the previous quarter and that the entire IT industry would see an improvement in the deal pipeline.

"The growth is definitely there and we should stick to what we have said earlier...The growth momentum in the last two quarters will continue this quarter also but we have to see whether it will be better than those during the boom days," TCS Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director, S Mahalingam, told reporters on the sidelines of a CII-IFRS summit here.

On increments to its employees, Mahalingam said that the company would be announcing the same around April but he would not be able to divulge the quantum now.

The TCS official, however, said that it would definitely be as per industry standards and keeping in view the prevailing economic scenario.

Mahalingam said that the company has planned to hire 30,000 personnel in the next fiscal.

TCS' 600 mn pound deal under fire in UK

The proposed multi-year contract between TCS and the UK government for administering its employment savings trust has evoked adverse comments from some British websites, one of which even suggested the deal could be reviewed if there is a change of guard in the government after the May elections.

The British's Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA) earlier this month had said it would sign a contract with Tata Consultancy Services to administer the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST).

The Personal Accounts Delivery Authority is a non-departmental public body in Britain.

According to the website www.moneymarketing.co.uk, the Conservatives have attacked the decision to sign the contract for NEST administration before the general elections.

The website quoted Conservative's shadow pensions minister Nigel Waterson as saying, "He is amazed that contract would be signed so quickly and stressed that this would not inhibit a Tory review of the scheme if they get into power.”

"We wish to make it clear that our review of NEST, should we win the elections, will not be constrained in any way by any contract signed by this government in its dying days," Waterson was quoted as saying in the report.
Source: EconomicTimes

High UK exposure may pose risk for TCS

With the UK government's contracts worth over $1 billion in the pipeline, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is exposed to substantial risks of project delays and anti-offshoring sentiments, according to local experts and rivals. Such projects also bring along single-digit margins and could impact profitability, unless there is significant work delivered from offshore.

Last week, the UK Personal Accounts Delivery said it decided to award a deal estimated at थ्600 million to TCS to administer the National Employee Savings Trust (NEST) scheme, a pensions scheme, for a 10-year-period in two phases. The decision has attracted sharp criticism from the Conservative party, which is opposing the decision taken close to the general elections.
Read full story on EconomicTimes

TCS signs 5-year deal with Malaysia Airlines

The country's largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) today inked a five-year deal with Malaysia Airlines (MA) for an undisclosed amount.

The five-year contract for end-to-end IT infrastructure services will transform the airline's IT operations to deliver seamless internal customer experience, TCS said in a statement.

However, the size of the deal was not disclosed. "One of the key initiatives include fine tuning our IT outsourcing strategy to deliver the required business results at lower cost. At the same time, we will continue to work with our key vendors to maximise service delivery and to proactively address other business requirements," MA Chief Information Officer Faridah Abdul Rahman said.

Mega Deals: $1 billion outsourcing contracts may come to India

Large outsourcing contracts worth up to $1 billion look set for a comeback this year, as companies from segments like retail, banking, telecom and utilities, apart from government bodies, seek to cope with renewed demand for their services and also lower their operational expenses.

Outsourcing experts and industry officials told ET last week that auto customers too are looking to award large contracts for managing their business and IT systems this year. British Petroleum’s IT contract worth $1.5 billion awarded to Indian vendors TCS, Infosys and Wipro early this year was one such mega deal.
Continue reading on EconomicTimes

TCS, Wipro to hire 37,500 employees

With improving business sentiment and revival in IT spends, hiring seems to be back in full swing at software firm TCS and Wipro. Tata Consultancy Services, the country's largest software exporter by revenue plans to hire 30,000 employees in the financial year 2010-2011. Wipro plans to add 7,500 people in the next two quarters.

Wipro handed out salary increments to all its employees. With effect from February 1, employees got a pay hike in the 8% to 12% range with some even getting a 15% increase.

Infosys had given a single-digit increment in October. It had announced an across-the-board raise and promotions with effect from October 1, 2009.

TCS CEO and MD N Chandrasekaran said, "China is a tough market for IT firms and the company was seeing business opportunity in Europe." The company is currently seeing an 8-10% growth in revenue from domestic operations and is eyeing a double-digit growth in the next two years.

Chandrasekaran said the company had signed a few large deals as well as a number of smaller ones.
"The financial services sector will drive growth. We expect good growth from retail, pharma and utilities," he said.

The company, however, expects a lesser growth from verticals such as telecom and manufacturing.

Chandrasekaran said the company will hike salaries of its employees in the coming fiscal, but did not give details. TCS, has not hiked wages in the current fiscal, but employees have received 150 per cent VA payouts in two consecutive quarters -- Q2 and Q3 of FY'10.

"We are on a path to hire 1,000 people. We have already hired 300," he said, replying to a query on hiring plans for the current fiscal. In Q3 of FY-10, TCS had made 7,692 net additions, compared with a net addition of 320 in the previous quarter.

Asked about the extent to which India would be affected by the US move to slash tax-breaks to outsourcers, Chandrasekaran said the matter is not an immediate concern.

US president Barack Obama last month had said his administration would "slash the tax-breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas" and instead "give those tax-breaks to companies that create jobs in the country," which sent shivers down the industry's spine.

This is because the US accounts for almost 60 per cent of the IT exports from the country are to that market.

"The regulatory changes with regard to employment and outsourcing in any part of the world is something that we have to watch every day. You need to see how to align to that, but because of this, if you ask me if there is an immediate concern, then the answer is no," Chandrasekaran said.

TCS, Infosys, Wipro give local flavour to foreign operations

India's large software service providers are going increasingly local with hiring in overseas markets, part of a drive to position themselves as truly global players and polish their image in advanced economies reeling from job losses.

Beginning with employing foreign nationals for junior and mid-level positions, companies such as Tata Consultancy (TCS), Infosys and Wipro – together these three account for about a third of India’s IT exports – now have a number of foreigners in their top echelons.

“There’s a transition in mindset to grow out of the Indian mold and aspire to be like an Oracle , IBM, Accenture, SAP. Also, as Indian companies have gained scale they can tap the best foreign talent; earlier they had to settle for just about anyone,’’ says K Sudarshan, managing partner at executive search firm EMA Partners International.

In the past year, many of the top positions at Wipro Technologies have been filled by foreigners. American Martha Bejar left Microsoft to join India’s third largest software exporter as president, global sales and operations. Ralf Reich, a former Unisys executive in charge of strategic outsourcing in continental Europe, was appointed head of German operations. And Wipro’s centres in France and Japan are also headed by non-Indians.

Infosys’ German, French and Australian operations are managed by locals. Jackie Korhonen, ex-vice-president of managed business process services for IBM Australia and New Zealand, is now head of Infosys Australia.

“They want to be true multinationals. Besides, if you want to really penetrate a local market, bagging business from not only big companies but also small and medium, you better have a local face,’’ says Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst, Gartner.

At TCS, India’s largest technology services company, foreign nationals comprise nearly 12% of the senior management. Among the key executives are John Lenzen, global head of marketing, Gabriel Rozman, global head of emerging markets and Carol Wilson, global business unit head, Hi-Tech solutions unit.

Amit Singh, head of the IT practice at Avendus Capital, says that Indian companies, used to expanding at 30%, are now seeing growth decline. “They want new avenues to maintain growth and hence the geographic expansion and local faces to drive it.’’

Indian software providers have also been expanding into new geographies in the past year. Infosys opened an office in Brazil in mid-December and in recent months Wipro started operations and ramped up investments in strategic development centres and near-shore centres like Atlanta (US), Bucharest (Romania), Wroclaw (Poland), Curitiba (Brazil), Chengdu (China) and Cebu (Philippines).
Continue reading on: EconomicTimes

Wipro, TCS, Infy plan to follow rival Accenture's sales model

India’s top tech firms, including Wipro, plan to follow rival Accenture’s sales model by hiring senior partners with a few decades of experience and capable of having a dialogue with chief executives of customer organisations, a shift from the earlier focus on selling services to IT heads of leading customers such as Citigroup and General Electric.

Wipro, which serves customers such as British Petroleum (BP) and Citi, has hired around a dozen senior partners from rivals Accenture, Ernst & Young and Deloitte over the past few months. Girish S Paranjpe, the company’s joint chief executive, told ET in an interview that his company would hire another 30 such partners in 2010.

Some senior professionals who have joined Wipro during the past few months as part of the company’s new sales strategy include Kirk Strawser, managing partner and global head, Wipro Consulting Services; Chris Rooney, global practice head, business transformation; and Roger Camrass, senior practice partner, business transformation.

“We often lost because of having pure CIO-level dialogues, we got hurt and even lost some deals,” he said. “We will hire another 30-40 such professionals who will be responsible for growing our client relationships to $30-40 million in revenues,” he added.

For many years, TCS, Infosys and Wipro have been focused on software application development and maintenance, getting new business from CIOs of large customers such as Citi, GE and many others. As they now seek bigger, multi-year transformational deals, they need to penetrate boardrooms of Fortune-500 companies.

“Client partners think and breathe business problems of customers who seek advise and guidance—they are people with a few decades of experience,” Mr Paranjpe added.

In a year when business was hard to come by, Wipro managed to penetrate large customers such as BP, helped by the new approach. Camrass, who joined Wipro as senior practice partner a few months ago, is respected by many decisionmakers within BP. With over 35 years of experience, Mr Camrass has worked with top consulting firms such as Ernst & Young.

India’s biggest software exporter, TCS, once perceived as a slow-moving IT behemoth, is also recruiting these partner-profile people, according to an industry analyst who wished to remain anonymous.

According to R Suresh, MD of executive search firm Stanton Chase, all top IT firms are looking at hiring partner-level people. “One of the reasons is they are winning huge long-term IT outsourcing contracts. These are annuity-based contracts and the client needs to see the same face when he’s interacting with the service provider,” he said.

Unlike the traditional Accenture model, Indian companies are hiring these professionals more as ‘client partners’, and not necessarily ‘equity partners’, added Mr Suresh.

Experts such as John C McCarthy, vice-president and principal analyst of Forrester Research, say Indian firms need to shift from having pure technology-based dialogues and work on their sales and marketing efforts. “This will be one of the biggest cultural shifts—these companies need to intensify their sales and marketing efforts,” he said.

Indeed, by engaging with top business leaders at a customer organisation, Accenture creates entry barriers for other suppliers. “Accenture’s partner-driven sales model is the ultimate form of client engagement,” Edelweiss analysts Viju George, Kunal Sangoi and Pratik Gandhi noted in their September report. Today, the common sales structure of the big three Indian tech firms is typically three-tiered—overall vertical head, client director in overall charge of client relationship, and multiple account managers handling different facets of the relationship.
Source: EconomicTimes

Employees want TCS passport project reviewed

The indefinite wait for the start of the Passport Seva Project -- an e-project for faster delivery of passports has got another sting in its tale.

The employees have now done a U-turn and asked for a "review" of the Rs 1,000-crore project outsourced to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

"We are of the opinion that there is a need to review afresh the whole project," said a letter from the All India Passport Employees Association (AIPEA) to Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor.

The Passport Seva Project is an e-governance project of the Indian government which is supposed to streamline and bring efficiency in the process of distribution of passports.

The contract for implementing the project, worth Rs 1,000 crore (Rs10 billion or $21.4 million) was given to information technology major Tata Consultancy Services in October 2008, with an implementation timeline from June.

Since then, there have been multiple deadlines -- in October and November. But the project is yet to take off as TCS has been unable to provide fool-proof software.

Incidentally, AIPEA had earlier reached an agreement with the ministry before the contract was signed with TCS in 2008 for starting the project -- after long overdue promotions were given to a large number of employees.

The association consists of 2,400 employees located at regional passport offices around the country. Incidentally, there has been a freeze on the recruitment of new employees, despite the number of passports processed doubling in the last seven years.