UK-based Barclays today said it would increase workforce in merchant banking segment across Asia by 10 per cent during 2010.
"We've seen very strong performance across Asia for all our business classes. We would expect our workforce to increase across Asia by 10 per cent," Barclays chairman and CEO Asia Pacific Robert A Morrice told reporters on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit here.
On India strategy, Barclays said that it would continue to grow the business in the same way as it has been growing in the last five years.
Meanwhile, Bank of America Merrill Lynch county head (India) Kevan V Watts said that India is a structural story and it makes sense to invest money in the equity market. “Sectors that look attractive include infrastructure and stock, which have good exposure to rural markets,” he said.
However, dollar is expected to remain week in the coming months.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
IT market, new openings
Tech firms to go headhunting
Technology firms Accenture and Infosys BPO were on Monday upbeat about hiring plans for next year, an indicator of brightening business prospects, although Microsoft India said it would go easy on new recruitments.
Information technology and consultancy were among the sectors hit by last year's global economic crisis, ripples of which are still being felt by businesses across continents.
Consultant Accenture said it would shore up its staff strength by 8,000 by next year, mainly in the analytics space. "We are 42,000 right now and we imagine we will be about 50,000 by the end of 2010," Accenture Chairman and Chief Executive Officer William D Green said on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit here.
Green added, "We believe that analytics is going to be an important trend that our customers are going to demand from us. We think India is going to be a great place for us."
Infosys BPO, the back-office unit of IT firm Infosys Technologies, said that it would hire 1,500-2,000 people by the end of the current fiscal. "We plan to hire 2,000 people in the next four-five months or by the end of this fiscal. Currently we are 16,000 people in India," Infosys BPO CEO Amitabh Chaudhry said.
Another BPO company Genpact has already hired 6,000-7,000 so far this year for its global operations. Microsoft India Chairman and Corporate Vice-President Ravi Venkatesan, however, said that "there will be no significant hiring. Microsoft has a headcount of 5,300 people in the country and had hired "a few hundreds" last year.
Most of the top domestic and transnational companies go for campus placements from the engineering and management schools around October-December.
Venkatesan said "(Steve) Ballmer (global CEO) has gone on record saying this is a period of consolidation," rather than adding to the headcount. The USD 58-billion global software leader has six business units in India, which include research centre, development centres and sales and marketing divisions.
The company, which boasts of running most of the personal computers worldwide on its operating system, has three centres in Hyderabad. The other units are in Bangaluru and Gurgaon.
Yesterday, global banking behemoth Standard Chartered said it plans to hire 3,000 employees in India by the end of 2010.
Information technology and consultancy were among the sectors hit by last year's global economic crisis, ripples of which are still being felt by businesses across continents.
Consultant Accenture said it would shore up its staff strength by 8,000 by next year, mainly in the analytics space. "We are 42,000 right now and we imagine we will be about 50,000 by the end of 2010," Accenture Chairman and Chief Executive Officer William D Green said on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit here.
Green added, "We believe that analytics is going to be an important trend that our customers are going to demand from us. We think India is going to be a great place for us."
Infosys BPO, the back-office unit of IT firm Infosys Technologies, said that it would hire 1,500-2,000 people by the end of the current fiscal. "We plan to hire 2,000 people in the next four-five months or by the end of this fiscal. Currently we are 16,000 people in India," Infosys BPO CEO Amitabh Chaudhry said.
Another BPO company Genpact has already hired 6,000-7,000 so far this year for its global operations. Microsoft India Chairman and Corporate Vice-President Ravi Venkatesan, however, said that "there will be no significant hiring. Microsoft has a headcount of 5,300 people in the country and had hired "a few hundreds" last year.
Most of the top domestic and transnational companies go for campus placements from the engineering and management schools around October-December.
Venkatesan said "(Steve) Ballmer (global CEO) has gone on record saying this is a period of consolidation," rather than adding to the headcount. The USD 58-billion global software leader has six business units in India, which include research centre, development centres and sales and marketing divisions.
The company, which boasts of running most of the personal computers worldwide on its operating system, has three centres in Hyderabad. The other units are in Bangaluru and Gurgaon.
Yesterday, global banking behemoth Standard Chartered said it plans to hire 3,000 employees in India by the end of 2010.
IT market
Google to buy AdMob for $750 Million
Google is to pay $750 million to buy AdMob, a provider of advertising on mobile phones, the internet search leader announced Monday.
The deal is the third largest ever undertaken by Google and underscores the company's strategy of extending its online advertising dominance to the mobile web, where its Android smartphone operating system is becoming increasingly popular. Google said it expected antitrust regulatory review in the U.S. but not in Europe.
AdMob has a system that serves display ads on mobile phones and its purchase could give the still nascent market a powerful boost, analysts said.
"Google could have built this itself, but this gives them a head start," says mobile analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. "It will thrust Google into the forefront of mobile display ads."
"AdMob is a great Silicon Valley story," said Google in a blog posting to announce the deal. "We are looking forward to having them join the Google team and work with us on the future of mobile advertising."
The deal is the third largest ever undertaken by Google and underscores the company's strategy of extending its online advertising dominance to the mobile web, where its Android smartphone operating system is becoming increasingly popular. Google said it expected antitrust regulatory review in the U.S. but not in Europe.
AdMob has a system that serves display ads on mobile phones and its purchase could give the still nascent market a powerful boost, analysts said.
"Google could have built this itself, but this gives them a head start," says mobile analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. "It will thrust Google into the forefront of mobile display ads."
"AdMob is a great Silicon Valley story," said Google in a blog posting to announce the deal. "We are looking forward to having them join the Google team and work with us on the future of mobile advertising."
IT market, new openings
Infosys opens its second development centre in Mexico
Infosys Technologies has opened its second development centre in Monterrey, Mexico, serving as a near shore unit to serve the regions of North America, Latin American and Europe.
The development centre will provide technology services for clients in all industries including banking, financial services, manufacturing, retail, distribution, insurance and many others, Infosys said in a notice to the stock exchanges.
“From our first development centre opening with a few clients and a dozen employees, we now have some 30 clients and 330 professionals,” said Ashok Vemuri, senior vice president, Infosys. After examining several countries in the region, Infosys chose to establish its presence in Mexico due to the broad language skills available in the region, its geographical proximity to Canada, the US and the Europe, the notice said.
The development centre will provide technology services for clients in all industries including banking, financial services, manufacturing, retail, distribution, insurance and many others, Infosys said in a notice to the stock exchanges.
“From our first development centre opening with a few clients and a dozen employees, we now have some 30 clients and 330 professionals,” said Ashok Vemuri, senior vice president, Infosys. After examining several countries in the region, Infosys chose to establish its presence in Mexico due to the broad language skills available in the region, its geographical proximity to Canada, the US and the Europe, the notice said.
IT market
Indian techie's iPhone game has highest download
T. Harikumar, who quit his job as an engineer with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to start Trivandrum based software firm Travancore Analytics, has developed the snakes and ladders board game for iPhone and iTouch.
"The Apple company after seeing the game asked us to re-do it as it had the iPhone logo. We removed it and the game was released on September 27. In a short span of time, the game has achieved more than 250,000 downloads - the highest for an iPhone application developed by any Indian software firm," said T. Harikumar. More than 70 percent of downloads have been from Canada, the UK, and the U.S.
Anyone who has an iPhone or an iTouch can log on to iTunes website and download the game for free. The free version of the game allows the user to be one of the players, while iPhone itself takes the role of the second player.
"We have given it a real feel. When the dice appears on screen, just shake the phone as you would do it while playing on the board game, and the dice shows the number," said Harikumar. The company currently has 22 employees and is mostly into image technology and processing.
"The Apple company after seeing the game asked us to re-do it as it had the iPhone logo. We removed it and the game was released on September 27. In a short span of time, the game has achieved more than 250,000 downloads - the highest for an iPhone application developed by any Indian software firm," said T. Harikumar. More than 70 percent of downloads have been from Canada, the UK, and the U.S.
Anyone who has an iPhone or an iTouch can log on to iTunes website and download the game for free. The free version of the game allows the user to be one of the players, while iPhone itself takes the role of the second player.
"We have given it a real feel. When the dice appears on screen, just shake the phone as you would do it while playing on the board game, and the dice shows the number," said Harikumar. The company currently has 22 employees and is mostly into image technology and processing.
IT market
Indian IT firms see higher profit per employee this year
Ironically enough, despite the recession, most Indian IT companies have made more revenues and profits per employee this year than they did during the same time last year. Historically, each year had seen these companies raise headcount while revenues did not grow at a comparable pace.
Companies were using more employees to produce the same unit of revenue. But the last 12 months seems to have been a period of reining in costs, managing foreign exchange volatility and cranking up utilization rates, reports the Hindu.
In many cases, among selected companies like TCS, Infosys and Wipro, revenue per employee and profits (before interest, depreciation and taxes) per employee seem to have risen. Notable among these are Cognizant and HCL Technologies.
Also, more than just one player sought to de-link IT services and BPO. A spokesman for Infosys, which saw revenue per employee falling while profits per employee rose slightly, said, "Considering the total number of employees may not be accurate, as it would include those from BPO/products, support staff and also those on the bench. Per capita revenues derived from effort man-months are accurate."
BPO and products businesses are different from IT business in terms of nature of work, skill sets required and employee costs. Thus, Infosys' revenue per employee for the September 2009 quarter was calculated at $6,752 compared to $7,310 in the same period of the previous year.
At Polaris, without considering BPO, revenue per employee rose to Rs. 8.82 lakh for half-year ended September 2009 versus Rs. 8.36 lakh the same time in the previous year. Profits per employee too rose from Rs. 1.22 lakh to Rs. 1.50 lakh. Srikanth, Executive Vice President and CFO, Polaris Software, said that the company managed this rise as "It has a 'built-in' hedge with roughly one-third of the business coming in from the U.S., Europe and APAC, making for a balanced revenue portfolio. We have four growth engines - customer accounts, product (intellect), new country expansion and the insurance business expansion. We grew in all four."
As for per capita growth in profit, he said that the company had focused sharply on internal efficiencies, optimal utilization of resources and rationalization of costs. "The products business has contributed to our healthy margins." Outcome-based pricing also seems to have helped companies.
HCL Technologies attributed its growth in per-employee figures to winning deals in the total outsourcing space. Anil Chanana, the CFO of HCL Technologies (HCL-T) said, "These deals are primarily outcome-based and do not require linear deployment of manpower. We also have a just-in-time hiring policy for skilled manpower." At the profit level during recession, HCL-T focused on savings in the 'general and administration' front while investing in sales and marketing. The support headcount has come down as a percentage of total headcount. Between the quarters ended September 2008 and September 2009, it had fallen from 9.21 percent to 8.95 percent.
Mindtree, which saw a decline in per-employee numbers, attributed it to changing onsite-offshore mix, among other reasons. Rostow Ravanan, CFO of Mindtree said, "When work moves offshore, it's an overall positive while revenue may be impacted in the short term. Also, the industry as a whole has been facing a pricing pressure from clients."
In a recent conversation with Business Line, Ashok Soota, Chairman of Mindtree had said that the company had not sent home any of its employees during the downturn. "We paid a price for it in terms of falling renationalisation rates, but we will reap the benefits when the turnaround happens."
When utilization, or employees being gainfully billed, is lower, the per-employee revenues and profits tend to fall. Cognizant Technology Solutions saw its annualized revenue and profit before interest and taxes per employee rise about 4.5 percent to $51,688 and two percent to $9,799 respectively, as during September 2009. It claims to possess the highest per capita revenue among its peers and attributes this to focusing on two geographies, namely the U.S. and Europe.
A Spokesman for Cognizant said that it had seen growth in the consulting part of the business, in addition to its focus on high-end of BPO and KPO segments. This, by inference, tends to provide high returns with fewer people, compared to mass contact centre businesses.
Net manpower addition over the last 12 months has been the highest for TCS at 20,311 while Infosys and Wipro added 5,147 and 339, respectively. Significantly, per capita figures at TCS have declined for revenues and profits.
Companies were using more employees to produce the same unit of revenue. But the last 12 months seems to have been a period of reining in costs, managing foreign exchange volatility and cranking up utilization rates, reports the Hindu.
In many cases, among selected companies like TCS, Infosys and Wipro, revenue per employee and profits (before interest, depreciation and taxes) per employee seem to have risen. Notable among these are Cognizant and HCL Technologies.
Also, more than just one player sought to de-link IT services and BPO. A spokesman for Infosys, which saw revenue per employee falling while profits per employee rose slightly, said, "Considering the total number of employees may not be accurate, as it would include those from BPO/products, support staff and also those on the bench. Per capita revenues derived from effort man-months are accurate."
BPO and products businesses are different from IT business in terms of nature of work, skill sets required and employee costs. Thus, Infosys' revenue per employee for the September 2009 quarter was calculated at $6,752 compared to $7,310 in the same period of the previous year.
At Polaris, without considering BPO, revenue per employee rose to Rs. 8.82 lakh for half-year ended September 2009 versus Rs. 8.36 lakh the same time in the previous year. Profits per employee too rose from Rs. 1.22 lakh to Rs. 1.50 lakh. Srikanth, Executive Vice President and CFO, Polaris Software, said that the company managed this rise as "It has a 'built-in' hedge with roughly one-third of the business coming in from the U.S., Europe and APAC, making for a balanced revenue portfolio. We have four growth engines - customer accounts, product (intellect), new country expansion and the insurance business expansion. We grew in all four."
As for per capita growth in profit, he said that the company had focused sharply on internal efficiencies, optimal utilization of resources and rationalization of costs. "The products business has contributed to our healthy margins." Outcome-based pricing also seems to have helped companies.
HCL Technologies attributed its growth in per-employee figures to winning deals in the total outsourcing space. Anil Chanana, the CFO of HCL Technologies (HCL-T) said, "These deals are primarily outcome-based and do not require linear deployment of manpower. We also have a just-in-time hiring policy for skilled manpower." At the profit level during recession, HCL-T focused on savings in the 'general and administration' front while investing in sales and marketing. The support headcount has come down as a percentage of total headcount. Between the quarters ended September 2008 and September 2009, it had fallen from 9.21 percent to 8.95 percent.
Mindtree, which saw a decline in per-employee numbers, attributed it to changing onsite-offshore mix, among other reasons. Rostow Ravanan, CFO of Mindtree said, "When work moves offshore, it's an overall positive while revenue may be impacted in the short term. Also, the industry as a whole has been facing a pricing pressure from clients."
In a recent conversation with Business Line, Ashok Soota, Chairman of Mindtree had said that the company had not sent home any of its employees during the downturn. "We paid a price for it in terms of falling renationalisation rates, but we will reap the benefits when the turnaround happens."
When utilization, or employees being gainfully billed, is lower, the per-employee revenues and profits tend to fall. Cognizant Technology Solutions saw its annualized revenue and profit before interest and taxes per employee rise about 4.5 percent to $51,688 and two percent to $9,799 respectively, as during September 2009. It claims to possess the highest per capita revenue among its peers and attributes this to focusing on two geographies, namely the U.S. and Europe.
A Spokesman for Cognizant said that it had seen growth in the consulting part of the business, in addition to its focus on high-end of BPO and KPO segments. This, by inference, tends to provide high returns with fewer people, compared to mass contact centre businesses.
Net manpower addition over the last 12 months has been the highest for TCS at 20,311 while Infosys and Wipro added 5,147 and 339, respectively. Significantly, per capita figures at TCS have declined for revenues and profits.
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