Mahindra Satyam, the information technology services company, has reorganised its structure after its acquisition by Tech Mahindra and combined sales and delivery functions into a single business unit.
“In the new structure, Vikram Nair, who since August 2005 headed European operations for Tech Mahindra, will head the business operations of Europe and will be responsible for the growth and expansion of Mahindra Satyam in the region. He will focus on driving synergies between Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam in Europe, to leverage mutual business strengths and increase revenue from the region,” Mahindra Satyam said in a filing to the BSE on Thursday.
Nair joined Tech Mahindra to establish and grow business across Europe outside of the British Telecom business. “Vikram has extensive expertise in the IT services industry in Europe. He understands the pulse of the market and has successfully led companies to grow their business in the region. We are confident that he will be able to add value to Mahindra Satyam’s presence in Europe,” Mahindra Satyam chief executive, C P Gurnani, said in a statement.
Aloke Palsikar, who worked as head of marketing for the European Region with Larsen and Toubro Infotech prior to joining Mahindra Satyam in 2003, will now head the Central European and Nordic operations and manage client relationships in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Nordic countries and Eastern Europe, and is based in Germany.
Besides, Suneel Unni, who has been with Mahindra Satyam in southern Europe since 2005, will head the South Europe and Benelux region for the company, while Guita Blake, who served blue-chip banking, financial services and insurance organisations like Barclays, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Lloyds TSB Insurance prior to joining Satyam in 2008, will head the financial services, retail and public sector business in the UK and Ireland for Mahindra Satyam.
“Roger Newman will head the manufacturing and digital convergence relationship management in the UK. He will be responsible for Satyam’s business development and relationship management for the manufacturing, energy and utilities and digital convergence verticals in the UK,” the company said.
Friday, October 2, 2009
IT market, Outsourcing
Big opportunities in Indian IT market, operations slow: Report
There is a lot of money to be made in the Indian information technology market, but decisions are slow, and large projects are subject to big delays and complex bidding procedures, says a Springboard Research report.
With US markets continuing to limp, IT services and hardware companies have been eyeing the domestic market with renewed vigour -- total IT market size in India is around $16,840 million (around Rs 82,516 crore), says the report. Of this, the public sector or government expenditure for IT is close to 18 per cent, around Rs 15,220 crore.
Half of all spending is on hardware, followed by IT Services (30 per cent) and software (20 per cent). Within the government sector, education leads with a budget of $356.2 million, followed by defence ($327 million) and taxation ($280 million). Healthcare, transportation, utilities and social services are the other major spenders.
Among the various programmes announced, the government would be spending close to $2.6 billion on the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), which includes $1.4 billion on common services centres (CSCs), $819 million on the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and $399 million on State Data Centres (SDC). Moreover, government organisations such as India Post, Indian Railways and other state agencies like LIC will spend around $2 billion on IT this year.
The evidence of these budgets is seen in the recent contracts that some Indian IT vendors have managed to have. Wipro Infotech won a $244 million e-governance project, from the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). TCS won the ePassport project. Under the CSCs programme, close to 25,195 centres have been set up, with another 10,000 in the pipeline, which have to be operational by the end of March 2009. A total of 100,000 CSCs are to be set-up. By the end of 2008, RFPs had been issued by 25 states for 1,06,275 CSCs and master service agreements signed for 1,02,851 centers in 23 states. However, if money is one side, several operating challenges form the other, says the report. E-Procurement has not meant faster decision-making. Large ICT projects are often delayed due to bureaucratic hassles and complex procedures in finalising tenders.
A case in point is the Indian Army, that started inviting bids for a $1-billion tactical communication system in late 2007, after having delayed it several times since 1998. Another issue is price. Since the Indian market is price-sensitive, many local players offer inexpensive solutions. Government, says the report, needs to evaluate the long-term outcome of IT, instead of simply looking at its own procurement needs.
The system needs overhaul: even after spending such huge amounts, the report said, there are challenges from the end-user point that needs to be solved to make these programmes successful.
So, while the government would be spending $5 billion on NeGP, issues that still need to tackled are lack of personnel with appropriate background and aptitude, inadequate skills of staffers and so forth. Apart from this, there is a need to create interpretability to reduce IT integration costs and inefficiencies, increase business agility, and enable the adoption of new and emerging technologies.
With US markets continuing to limp, IT services and hardware companies have been eyeing the domestic market with renewed vigour -- total IT market size in India is around $16,840 million (around Rs 82,516 crore), says the report. Of this, the public sector or government expenditure for IT is close to 18 per cent, around Rs 15,220 crore.
Half of all spending is on hardware, followed by IT Services (30 per cent) and software (20 per cent). Within the government sector, education leads with a budget of $356.2 million, followed by defence ($327 million) and taxation ($280 million). Healthcare, transportation, utilities and social services are the other major spenders.
Among the various programmes announced, the government would be spending close to $2.6 billion on the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), which includes $1.4 billion on common services centres (CSCs), $819 million on the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and $399 million on State Data Centres (SDC). Moreover, government organisations such as India Post, Indian Railways and other state agencies like LIC will spend around $2 billion on IT this year.
The evidence of these budgets is seen in the recent contracts that some Indian IT vendors have managed to have. Wipro Infotech won a $244 million e-governance project, from the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). TCS won the ePassport project. Under the CSCs programme, close to 25,195 centres have been set up, with another 10,000 in the pipeline, which have to be operational by the end of March 2009. A total of 100,000 CSCs are to be set-up. By the end of 2008, RFPs had been issued by 25 states for 1,06,275 CSCs and master service agreements signed for 1,02,851 centers in 23 states. However, if money is one side, several operating challenges form the other, says the report. E-Procurement has not meant faster decision-making. Large ICT projects are often delayed due to bureaucratic hassles and complex procedures in finalising tenders.
A case in point is the Indian Army, that started inviting bids for a $1-billion tactical communication system in late 2007, after having delayed it several times since 1998. Another issue is price. Since the Indian market is price-sensitive, many local players offer inexpensive solutions. Government, says the report, needs to evaluate the long-term outcome of IT, instead of simply looking at its own procurement needs.
The system needs overhaul: even after spending such huge amounts, the report said, there are challenges from the end-user point that needs to be solved to make these programmes successful.
So, while the government would be spending $5 billion on NeGP, issues that still need to tackled are lack of personnel with appropriate background and aptitude, inadequate skills of staffers and so forth. Apart from this, there is a need to create interpretability to reduce IT integration costs and inefficiencies, increase business agility, and enable the adoption of new and emerging technologies.
IT market
Cisco to acquire Tandberg for $3 Billion
Cisco Systems will acquire Norway's video conferencing equipment maker Tandberg ASA for $3 billion (17.2 billion Norwegian crowns) in cash, the companies informed on Thursday.
"Tandberg's board of directors have unanimously decided to recommend its shareholders to accept the offer," informed Tandberg.
The analysts had different opinions about the offer price, as some stated it fair while others said that it was too low. "This sounds like a pretty good price so I would think it will end up there. But the bid will stand for four weeks and there might be other offers," said Martin Hoff, Analyst, Arctic Securities.
"The probability for a competing bid was low, but not impossible. From an industrial perspective, this is right for the company," said Espen Torgersen, Analyst, Carnegie. He also added that the price was "highly acceptable".
Tandberg's share price rose up to 12.8 percent to a high of 156 Norwegian crowns before getting back to 154 Norwegian crowns. The shares of Cisco trading in Frankfurt were one percent lower at $23.28 (15.98 euros).
Cisco Systems informed that Fredrik Halvorsen, Chief Executive Officer, Tandberg would continue to lead the unit.
"Tandberg's board of directors have unanimously decided to recommend its shareholders to accept the offer," informed Tandberg.
The analysts had different opinions about the offer price, as some stated it fair while others said that it was too low. "This sounds like a pretty good price so I would think it will end up there. But the bid will stand for four weeks and there might be other offers," said Martin Hoff, Analyst, Arctic Securities.
"The probability for a competing bid was low, but not impossible. From an industrial perspective, this is right for the company," said Espen Torgersen, Analyst, Carnegie. He also added that the price was "highly acceptable".
Tandberg's share price rose up to 12.8 percent to a high of 156 Norwegian crowns before getting back to 154 Norwegian crowns. The shares of Cisco trading in Frankfurt were one percent lower at $23.28 (15.98 euros).
Cisco Systems informed that Fredrik Halvorsen, Chief Executive Officer, Tandberg would continue to lead the unit.
IT market, New Deals
MindTree to acquire Kyocera Wireless' subsidiary in India
In a move that would help it consolidate its position in the growing product engineering services (PES) space, Mindtree, the IT and R&D services company, has signed an agreement with Kyocera Wireless Corp (KWC) to acquire its Indian subsidiary, Kyocera Wireless (India).
The acquisition involves an upfront payment of about $6 million (about Rs 29 crore), other than payments linked to the revenues to be acquired from Kyocera during 2010-11 and 2011-12. MindTree expects this acquisition to contribute about $9 million in revenues for the period October 2009 to March 2010, with profit after tax in the range of 13-15 per cent.
California-headquartered KWC is a global producer of mobile handsets and wireless products, and is part of the $11.5 billion Kyocera Corporation. Established in 2003, Kyocera Wireless (India) employs about 600 people in India, with its development centre located in Bangalore.
The acquisition involves an upfront payment of about $6 million (about Rs 29 crore), other than payments linked to the revenues to be acquired from Kyocera during 2010-11 and 2011-12. MindTree expects this acquisition to contribute about $9 million in revenues for the period October 2009 to March 2010, with profit after tax in the range of 13-15 per cent.
California-headquartered KWC is a global producer of mobile handsets and wireless products, and is part of the $11.5 billion Kyocera Corporation. Established in 2003, Kyocera Wireless (India) employs about 600 people in India, with its development centre located in Bangalore.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
IT market, New Deals, new openings
Xerox, ACS buy set to bring in more jobs to India
Xerox Corporation’s move to acquire Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services for $6.4 billion comes just a week after Dell’s buyout of Perot Systems for $3.9-billion.
The Xerox deal is expected to create “significant number" of additional jobs in India as cost optimisation is going to be great focus for the copier giant. In fact, Xerox expects to achieve annualised cost synergies in the range of $300- $400 million in the first three years by using ACS’ back-office expertise to handle the latter’s internal functions.
Aman Mustafa, country manager (India), ACS Global Operations Support, told TOI: “There will be a greater flow in the back-office work related to document management space. The coming together of Xerox and ACS will throw up significantly higher job opportunities in the country.’’
ACS is a 74,000-people strong company with global revenues of $6.5 billion. It employs 5,500 people in India across Bangalore, Kochi, Chennai and Noida. ACS will now on be called a Xerox company. Based in Sohna, near Gurgaon, Xerox currently has 500 people in the country, mostly in the marketing, sales and support functions.
In a letter addressed to employees, analysts and advisors across the globe, ACS president & CEO Lynn Blodgett said, “You may know Xerox because of its industryleading printing technologies, but you may not know that its services expertise is just as strong, generating $3.5 billion in annuity revenues. Together with Xerox, ACS will be able to grow and scale in incredible ways.’’
The combined entity would create a $22-billion global enterprise for document technology and business process management. It will establish a solutions provider that surpasses every competitor and sets a new standard for document technology and BPO management.
Blodgett said, “We anticipate that this transaction will close in the first quarter of 2010. As we approach that date, I will keep you updated on the integration process.’’
Commenting on the deal, BPO exponent Raman Roy said, “We are yet to know how big an offshore play it is. However, India is already the largest handler of outsourced digitised data/images, a few trillion every hour. Xerox is a leader in document solutions. The deal may be an indication of consolidation in this space.’’
The Xerox deal is expected to create “significant number" of additional jobs in India as cost optimisation is going to be great focus for the copier giant. In fact, Xerox expects to achieve annualised cost synergies in the range of $300- $400 million in the first three years by using ACS’ back-office expertise to handle the latter’s internal functions.
Aman Mustafa, country manager (India), ACS Global Operations Support, told TOI: “There will be a greater flow in the back-office work related to document management space. The coming together of Xerox and ACS will throw up significantly higher job opportunities in the country.’’
ACS is a 74,000-people strong company with global revenues of $6.5 billion. It employs 5,500 people in India across Bangalore, Kochi, Chennai and Noida. ACS will now on be called a Xerox company. Based in Sohna, near Gurgaon, Xerox currently has 500 people in the country, mostly in the marketing, sales and support functions.
In a letter addressed to employees, analysts and advisors across the globe, ACS president & CEO Lynn Blodgett said, “You may know Xerox because of its industryleading printing technologies, but you may not know that its services expertise is just as strong, generating $3.5 billion in annuity revenues. Together with Xerox, ACS will be able to grow and scale in incredible ways.’’
The combined entity would create a $22-billion global enterprise for document technology and business process management. It will establish a solutions provider that surpasses every competitor and sets a new standard for document technology and BPO management.
Blodgett said, “We anticipate that this transaction will close in the first quarter of 2010. As we approach that date, I will keep you updated on the integration process.’’
Commenting on the deal, BPO exponent Raman Roy said, “We are yet to know how big an offshore play it is. However, India is already the largest handler of outsourced digitised data/images, a few trillion every hour. Xerox is a leader in document solutions. The deal may be an indication of consolidation in this space.’’
IT market, New Deals, Outsourcing, TCS
TCS bags multi-million dollar deal
Indian IT major Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), today announced that it has entered into a a multi-million dollar deal with a Singapore's People's Association, a statutory board under Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, to provide annual Application Management Services for two years.
Under the agreement, TCS would develop and maintain People's Association's business and citizen centric applications including mission critical applications. It involves consolidating its multiple vendor environment allowing for reduced maintenance costs and simplified system administration, said a press release.
This system would enable higher process efficiency and staff productivity across the organization. All these would contribute towards lower costs spent on application maintenance, while improving end user satisfaction and enhancing citizen experience with the agency.
Girija Pande, EVP and head, TCS Asia Pacific, said, "Our expertise in AMS, combined with our ability to deliver certainty of results would provide sustained value to People's Association."
He added that they installed strict quality control procedures and continued to drive more value for their Singaporean clients through increased service quality provided by their team of highly qualified people with local knowledge of culture and processes.
Under the agreement, TCS would develop and maintain People's Association's business and citizen centric applications including mission critical applications. It involves consolidating its multiple vendor environment allowing for reduced maintenance costs and simplified system administration, said a press release.
This system would enable higher process efficiency and staff productivity across the organization. All these would contribute towards lower costs spent on application maintenance, while improving end user satisfaction and enhancing citizen experience with the agency.
Girija Pande, EVP and head, TCS Asia Pacific, said, "Our expertise in AMS, combined with our ability to deliver certainty of results would provide sustained value to People's Association."
He added that they installed strict quality control procedures and continued to drive more value for their Singaporean clients through increased service quality provided by their team of highly qualified people with local knowledge of culture and processes.
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