Say cheers to this! IT behemoth Infosys has reintroduced binge benefit to its 100,000 employees, entitling them to a fixed quarterly allowance to take time out for recreation.
The company had withdrawn this perk six months ago in the wake of the economic meltdown and stagnation of its business.
There is now buzz in the campus that Infy may soon reintroduce other incentives such as interest-free home loans to needy employees, car loans and other giveaways.
The news comes close on the heels of the IT bellwether revising its full-year revenue guidance upwards and is aimed at boosting staff morale.
Nandita Gurjar, senior VP and group head of HR at Infosys, confirmed the news.
“Yes, we have reintroduced this particular scheme. This was put on hold due to economic downturn. Under this scheme, the company pays Rs 300 per person every quarter as party incentive. All employees will get this benefit,” Gurjar said.
Infoscians say the sop marks a return to good times both for the company and for the employees located at around 50 offices across the globe.
The party incentive comes as the icing on top of an across-the-board salary hike and promotions announced earlier this month. Offshore salaries have risen by 8 per cent while onsite remunerations have gone up 2 per cent.
For quarter ending September 30, Infosys reported a rise in net profit by 7.5 per cent on a year-on-year basis at Rs 1,540 crore and 3 per cent revenues growth at Rs 5,418 crore, beating street expectations.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
IT market
Windows 7 launch today
The world’s largest software company Microsoft will unveil the latest version of its operating system, Windows 7 on Thursday. The new operating system allows increased usage of multimedia applications and is helpful for users who prefer to store data on the internet. The Redmond-based company’s previous operating system, Vista, had failed to elicit much response. “The product will now be available to all enterprises across India,” Windows client director said.
IT market, new openings, Recession
IT job mart buzzing again, software pros in demand
Headhunters looking out for 30,000 lateral entries in top firms
IT majors are back to hiring experienced hands after an eight-month hiatus beginning January. Counting for the early signals from headhunters in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, tech shops may be looking out for up to 30,000 lateral entries, if not more, before this calendar runs out. Recruitment agencies say they have started getting mandates for hiring in small batches.
At least two recruitment firms that FC spoke to confirmed that IT companies had mandated lateral hiring of between 20,000 and 30,000 employees in the past one month alone, though they were unwilling to hazard a guess on how the numbers might stack up by the end of 2009. They said there were still uncertainties about hiring intentions of their clients.
In the boom years of 2006, 2007 and 2008, the IT/ITeS industry created up to 400,000 new jobs every year of which about 150,000 were lateral entries. And while the global recession set in September 2008, hiring continued right through December. It was only in January-August this year that hiring trickled down to just a few hundred.
Headhunters confide that most large Indian and foreign firms, including the likes of IBM and Accenture, are back to hiring. Infosys and TCS have about more lateral hirings from the October-December quarter. So are some of the mid-sized body shops Sotware engineers with 4-8 years experience are mostly in demand.
Kris Lakshmikanth, CEO of The Head Hunters India said even tier-II IT companies were scouting for experienced personnel. “Depending on the size of the companies, the number of vacancies is generally between 50-100.”
Infosys board member T V Mohandas Pai told Financial Chronicle that his company had increased the forecast of additional headcount for financial year 2010 to 20,000 from 18,000 because it wanted to recruit more experienced people. This was needed to balance out the company’s staff pyramid, 70 per cent of which rests on freshers.
A HR industry tracker, who did not want to be named, said Infosys and TCS were also looking for business and vertical heads with over 12 years experience.
Sudhakar Balakrishnan, CEO of Adecco India, said, “There is some buoyancy now in the lateral hiring market for IT companies. Companies, though keeping the final numbers under wraps, are definitely looking to hire laterally. With revenues going up and the environment stabilising, they feel that a lot of requirements would be coming up.’’
While declining to give definite growth numbers, T Muralidharan, CMD of Hyderabad-based TMI Group said, the mandates received by his agency for filling up vacancies at top software firms in the past month was equal to what he had got in the preceding five months.
E Balaji, CEO of Chennai-based Ma Foi Management Consultants, said while the signs were good, firms were basically opening up positions that they had frozen earlier. “We have to wait and see how this scenario will pan out in the future,” he added. His opinion was shared by Gautam Sinha, CEO of TVA Allegis, a specialty IT/ITeS
hiring firm. He said, “The situation has improved but we are still 3-6 months away from lateral hiring going up to the pre-economic crisis numbers. The pipeline is good but big hirings will depend on the market condition in the US in coming months.”
He also explained that right now the companies were looking for professionals with 4-8 years experience. The big numbers would come when firms start looking out for professionals with 2-4 years experience, he said.
IT majors are back to hiring experienced hands after an eight-month hiatus beginning January. Counting for the early signals from headhunters in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, tech shops may be looking out for up to 30,000 lateral entries, if not more, before this calendar runs out. Recruitment agencies say they have started getting mandates for hiring in small batches.
At least two recruitment firms that FC spoke to confirmed that IT companies had mandated lateral hiring of between 20,000 and 30,000 employees in the past one month alone, though they were unwilling to hazard a guess on how the numbers might stack up by the end of 2009. They said there were still uncertainties about hiring intentions of their clients.
In the boom years of 2006, 2007 and 2008, the IT/ITeS industry created up to 400,000 new jobs every year of which about 150,000 were lateral entries. And while the global recession set in September 2008, hiring continued right through December. It was only in January-August this year that hiring trickled down to just a few hundred.
Headhunters confide that most large Indian and foreign firms, including the likes of IBM and Accenture, are back to hiring. Infosys and TCS have about more lateral hirings from the October-December quarter. So are some of the mid-sized body shops Sotware engineers with 4-8 years experience are mostly in demand.
Kris Lakshmikanth, CEO of The Head Hunters India said even tier-II IT companies were scouting for experienced personnel. “Depending on the size of the companies, the number of vacancies is generally between 50-100.”
Infosys board member T V Mohandas Pai told Financial Chronicle that his company had increased the forecast of additional headcount for financial year 2010 to 20,000 from 18,000 because it wanted to recruit more experienced people. This was needed to balance out the company’s staff pyramid, 70 per cent of which rests on freshers.
A HR industry tracker, who did not want to be named, said Infosys and TCS were also looking for business and vertical heads with over 12 years experience.
Sudhakar Balakrishnan, CEO of Adecco India, said, “There is some buoyancy now in the lateral hiring market for IT companies. Companies, though keeping the final numbers under wraps, are definitely looking to hire laterally. With revenues going up and the environment stabilising, they feel that a lot of requirements would be coming up.’’
While declining to give definite growth numbers, T Muralidharan, CMD of Hyderabad-based TMI Group said, the mandates received by his agency for filling up vacancies at top software firms in the past month was equal to what he had got in the preceding five months.
E Balaji, CEO of Chennai-based Ma Foi Management Consultants, said while the signs were good, firms were basically opening up positions that they had frozen earlier. “We have to wait and see how this scenario will pan out in the future,” he added. His opinion was shared by Gautam Sinha, CEO of TVA Allegis, a specialty IT/ITeS
hiring firm. He said, “The situation has improved but we are still 3-6 months away from lateral hiring going up to the pre-economic crisis numbers. The pipeline is good but big hirings will depend on the market condition in the US in coming months.”
He also explained that right now the companies were looking for professionals with 4-8 years experience. The big numbers would come when firms start looking out for professionals with 2-4 years experience, he said.
IT market
Yahoo triples profit, beats f'cast
Yahoo Inc beat Wall Street's profit and sales expectations as spending by advertisers showed signs of life in the third quarter and as months of cost-cutting and restructuring boosted the Internet company's bottom line.
Shares of Yahoo, the top US seller of online display ads but a distant No. 2 to Google Inc in search, jumped 5 percent after the results, which analysts said boded well for the fourth quarter, when ad spending should improve further.
Yahoo's revenue from display advertising was much better than expected, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler, citing the 2 percent sequential increase in US display ad sales.
"That basically says that large Fortune 500 advertisers who want high-quality, premium inventory are going back to Yahoo more in the third quarter than they were in the first or second," he said.
Yahoo's net profit more than tripled year-over-year, though a big chunk of the upside came from the sale of its stake in Chinese Web site alibaba.com. Yahoo has undergone significant restructuring since Chief Executive Carol Bartz took over in January. It said in April it would lay off 5 percent of its workforce, or about 675 jobs, and it also pulled the plug on underperforming properties.
Yahoo also signed a 10-year Web search partnership with Microsoft Corp to challenge Google, a pact that US and European antitrust regulators are evaluating.
Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse said on a conference call that the company still believes the deal will close in early 2010, and that they can make significant progress on integration in one or two major markets next year.
Morse, who began as Yahoo CFO in July and handled Tuesday's earnings conference call on his own due to Bartz' having "come down with something" -- which he characterized as not serious -- said large advertisers began to spend again in the third quarter.
Shares of Yahoo, the top US seller of online display ads but a distant No. 2 to Google Inc in search, jumped 5 percent after the results, which analysts said boded well for the fourth quarter, when ad spending should improve further.
Yahoo's revenue from display advertising was much better than expected, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler, citing the 2 percent sequential increase in US display ad sales.
"That basically says that large Fortune 500 advertisers who want high-quality, premium inventory are going back to Yahoo more in the third quarter than they were in the first or second," he said.
Yahoo's net profit more than tripled year-over-year, though a big chunk of the upside came from the sale of its stake in Chinese Web site alibaba.com. Yahoo has undergone significant restructuring since Chief Executive Carol Bartz took over in January. It said in April it would lay off 5 percent of its workforce, or about 675 jobs, and it also pulled the plug on underperforming properties.
Yahoo also signed a 10-year Web search partnership with Microsoft Corp to challenge Google, a pact that US and European antitrust regulators are evaluating.
Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse said on a conference call that the company still believes the deal will close in early 2010, and that they can make significant progress on integration in one or two major markets next year.
Morse, who began as Yahoo CFO in July and handled Tuesday's earnings conference call on his own due to Bartz' having "come down with something" -- which he characterized as not serious -- said large advertisers began to spend again in the third quarter.
Layoffs in India, Satyam
Mahindra Satyam may axe 5,000 benchers
The axe is haunting Mahindra Satyam staff, months after they were assured that there would not be any layoffs. On Monday afternoon, many Satyam's employees on the Virtual Pool Program (VPP) of the company were sent a formal notice of two months by e-mail.
The mail dated October 19, a copy of which is with The Times of India, reads, "In our earlier communication dated June 11, 2009, you were placed on VPP for a period of six months and accordingly, your Virtual Pool Leave is due to end on December 18, 2009. It is rather unfortunate that due to the continued economic constraints and business outlook, we do not anticipate that we will have the ability to recall many of our valued associates within the VPP period."
On June 11, the company announced the creation of the virtual pool, placing nearly 8,000 associates on the bench. "The surplus employees will be put in the VPP and paid basic salary, PF and medical insurance," Vineet Nayyar, CEO, Tech Mahindra, had said even as he ruled out any retrenchment.
However, with the six-month period of the VPP set to lapse in December, the company has served a two-month notice, as required by the employment contract, reportedly on over 5,000 employees. Sources told that the company did not have enough projects on hand and was not able to recall many associates.
A Mahindra Satyam spokesperson told that the company had absorbed about 1,500 associates from the virtual pool. The spokesperson also denied that the company was "laying off" people, even as the mail speaks of "separation of employment".
"We have given these employees an option of availing outplacement services. We will try to help them to the best of our abilities," he said.
The mail dated October 19, a copy of which is with The Times of India, reads, "In our earlier communication dated June 11, 2009, you were placed on VPP for a period of six months and accordingly, your Virtual Pool Leave is due to end on December 18, 2009. It is rather unfortunate that due to the continued economic constraints and business outlook, we do not anticipate that we will have the ability to recall many of our valued associates within the VPP period."
On June 11, the company announced the creation of the virtual pool, placing nearly 8,000 associates on the bench. "The surplus employees will be put in the VPP and paid basic salary, PF and medical insurance," Vineet Nayyar, CEO, Tech Mahindra, had said even as he ruled out any retrenchment.
However, with the six-month period of the VPP set to lapse in December, the company has served a two-month notice, as required by the employment contract, reportedly on over 5,000 employees. Sources told that the company did not have enough projects on hand and was not able to recall many associates.
A Mahindra Satyam spokesperson told that the company had absorbed about 1,500 associates from the virtual pool. The spokesperson also denied that the company was "laying off" people, even as the mail speaks of "separation of employment".
"We have given these employees an option of availing outplacement services. We will try to help them to the best of our abilities," he said.
Layoffs in USA
Sun Micro to cut 3,000 jobs
Computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc is cutting 3,000 jobs worldwide, or about 10 percent of its staff, blaming delays in its $7 billion sale to Oracle Corp.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison recently said that Sun is losing about $100 million a month because of uncertainty about the computer maker's future as European antitrust regulators pursue an in-depth probe of the transaction.
Rivals IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co are taking advantage of the uncertainty by poaching Sun's customers with steep discounts.
"Sun's business is really hurting," said Cross Research analyst Shannon Cross.
Analysts had widely expected thousands of Sun employees to lose their jobs, but not until No. 2 business software maker Oracle closes the deal.
Sun sold itself to Oracle after several years of failed attempts to devise a strategy to turn itself around. Last year it announced plans to 5,000 to 6,000 jobs and posted a net loss of $2.2 billion.
Sun said the job cuts would take place over the next 12 months, and it expects to take $75 million to $125 million in charges over the next several quarters. It said the job cuts would occur worldwide -- in its North America, EMEA, APAC and emerging markets regions.
Oracle spokeswoman Karen Tillman declined comment.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison recently said that Sun is losing about $100 million a month because of uncertainty about the computer maker's future as European antitrust regulators pursue an in-depth probe of the transaction.
Rivals IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co are taking advantage of the uncertainty by poaching Sun's customers with steep discounts.
"Sun's business is really hurting," said Cross Research analyst Shannon Cross.
Analysts had widely expected thousands of Sun employees to lose their jobs, but not until No. 2 business software maker Oracle closes the deal.
Sun sold itself to Oracle after several years of failed attempts to devise a strategy to turn itself around. Last year it announced plans to 5,000 to 6,000 jobs and posted a net loss of $2.2 billion.
Sun said the job cuts would take place over the next 12 months, and it expects to take $75 million to $125 million in charges over the next several quarters. It said the job cuts would occur worldwide -- in its North America, EMEA, APAC and emerging markets regions.
Oracle spokeswoman Karen Tillman declined comment.
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