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
Monday, January 4, 2010
IT market
5 kinds of colleagues, who may be laid off soon
There are people in workplaces who cause problems that may result in them being laid off from work. According to HR expert Henry Fernandes, every office has problem employees. "Whether you are an employer or a co-worker, you have to deal with things diplomatically and on time if you do not want work to suffer," he says.
People who have attitude problem may become victims of layoffs. Such employees can make workplaces a very sad place. If other employees are demoralized, productivity will suffer. "It could be an employee's attitude towards work, excessive criticism of fellow colleagues or talking rudely," says Fernandes.
Those not coming to work on time may also face the wrath. This means work gets started late and deadlines are not met. "It sets a bad example and reflects on your working style and discipline in the office," says Fernandes.
Another reason can be if the employee doesn't keep his desks tidy. "Basically, the employee who does this is being careless," says Fernandes.
There are habits that disrupt work and affect productivity in workplace. A colleague who talks too much or discusses personal problems on the phone so loudly can result in you losing concentration on work.
Some people ask too many personal questions or keep looking at your computer screen to see what you are doing. "Even if you are sending a personal mail, they don't stop," says Fernandes.
The only way to deal with these kinds of employees is to have a serious talk with them. If you are the employer, you can be straightforward and question their behavior. If their behavior continues to affect others' productivity, it's time to show them the way out.
Source: SiliconIndia
People who have attitude problem may become victims of layoffs. Such employees can make workplaces a very sad place. If other employees are demoralized, productivity will suffer. "It could be an employee's attitude towards work, excessive criticism of fellow colleagues or talking rudely," says Fernandes.
Those not coming to work on time may also face the wrath. This means work gets started late and deadlines are not met. "It sets a bad example and reflects on your working style and discipline in the office," says Fernandes.
Another reason can be if the employee doesn't keep his desks tidy. "Basically, the employee who does this is being careless," says Fernandes.
There are habits that disrupt work and affect productivity in workplace. A colleague who talks too much or discusses personal problems on the phone so loudly can result in you losing concentration on work.
Some people ask too many personal questions or keep looking at your computer screen to see what you are doing. "Even if you are sending a personal mail, they don't stop," says Fernandes.
The only way to deal with these kinds of employees is to have a serious talk with them. If you are the employer, you can be straightforward and question their behavior. If their behavior continues to affect others' productivity, it's time to show them the way out.
Source: SiliconIndia
Monday, December 28, 2009
IT market
The top 100 IT projects of 2009
2009 InfoWorld 100 Awards: IT remains the lifeblood of forward-thinking organizations, as this year's recipients of InfoWorld's highest honor attest
Accenture
Unified Collaboration Initiative
Project lead: Frank B. Modruson, CIO
Project description: Accenture developed Accenture Client Exchange, a communications and collaboration platform that provides employees and clients presence, secure IM, voice and videoconferencing, virtual desktop sharing, and network-enabled phone functionality based on technology from Microsoft and Cisco.
Industry: Services
Activision Blizzard
WAN-Optimized Development Initiative
Project lead: Thomas Fenady, Senior Director of IT
Project description: Activision Blizzard increased the efficiency of its worldwide development efforts by revamping its network and moving away from MPLS (multiprotocol label switching) and DS3s (Digital Signal 3) in favor of WAN optimization technology from Riverbed.
Industry: Entertainment
ADP
Client Service Initiative
Project lead: Jeff Mullins, Vice President, Field Automation Engineering
Project description: ADP developed Workspace Manager, a unified customer service agent desktop built on Microsoft .Net and integrating Web, Java, Win32, mainframe, and legacy applications within a single user interface, while supporting the development of new composite application interfaces and eliminating the need for client service agents to individually log into 17 Citrix Presentation Server infrastructures.
Industry: Services
Click here to read complete list from InfoWorld
Accenture
Unified Collaboration Initiative
Project lead: Frank B. Modruson, CIO
Project description: Accenture developed Accenture Client Exchange, a communications and collaboration platform that provides employees and clients presence, secure IM, voice and videoconferencing, virtual desktop sharing, and network-enabled phone functionality based on technology from Microsoft and Cisco.
Industry: Services
Activision Blizzard
WAN-Optimized Development Initiative
Project lead: Thomas Fenady, Senior Director of IT
Project description: Activision Blizzard increased the efficiency of its worldwide development efforts by revamping its network and moving away from MPLS (multiprotocol label switching) and DS3s (Digital Signal 3) in favor of WAN optimization technology from Riverbed.
Industry: Entertainment
ADP
Client Service Initiative
Project lead: Jeff Mullins, Vice President, Field Automation Engineering
Project description: ADP developed Workspace Manager, a unified customer service agent desktop built on Microsoft .Net and integrating Web, Java, Win32, mainframe, and legacy applications within a single user interface, while supporting the development of new composite application interfaces and eliminating the need for client service agents to individually log into 17 Citrix Presentation Server infrastructures.
Industry: Services
Click here to read complete list from InfoWorld
IT market
Satyam, slowdowns make 2009 hard for software industry
The Satyam Computer accounting scam, slowdown and resultant hiring freeze by many made 2009 a forgettable year for the Indian Information Technology industry.
There was never a dull moment for bad news during the year, given the fact that Satyam's founder B Ramalinga Raju came out of the closet with an accounting fraud on January 7. The scam tarnished the credibility of India's IT story, requiring others to do a lot of convincing to retain clients.
As dramatic it was, the World Bank, within a week of the Satyam scam coming to light, announced it had banned, besides Satyam, Wipro and Megasoft from working for it for allegedly "providing improper benefits to the Bank staff" during the course of their projects with it. While the cases dated back to mid-2007, the timing of the disclosures only helped compound the woes of the IT industry.
To give the government its due credit, it acted swiftly by superseding the Satyam Board, which brought in new auditors to restate accounts, and ascertained employee count and within months found a new owner in Tech Mahindra. Satyam has since been renamed Mahindra Satyam.
Multiple agencies probed the scam, whose size was initially estimated at Rs 7,800 crore, and Raju, once a celebrated IT icon, is in custody awaiting trial.
2009 also saw the software exporting community trying hard to keep their margins as clients cut down on IT spends. The huge forex losses due to fluctuation of rupee didn't help them either.
Bulk of IT companies' revenue comes from the US and Europe and they earn more when the dollar is stronger.
Although the dollar was stronger, many of them had hedged against a stronger rupee - which it was in 2007 - thus losing out any which way.
The fallout of this was that top Indian IT companies, which used to hire up to 25,000 people annually, put recruitment on hold. Many of them, including Infosys, postponed campus recruitments.
Talking of Infosys, its poster-boy Nandan Nilekani left the IT company he helped found to join the government for a project to give every Indian citizen a unique identity number.
Globally, the industry saw a few mergers and acquisitions. In April, US business software company Oracle Corporation announced that it would buy its Silicon Valley rival Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion in cash.
The takeover has moved Oracle, the world's second-largest software maker, into the server and storage computers market, placing it against IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
In September, the world's second largest PC maker Dell Inc entered into an agreement to acquire computer services firm Perot Systems for about $3.9 billion, making it one of the biggest deals in the IT space since the global financial turmoil hit the sector. The acquisition was aimed at helping Dell foray into the software space.
Copier major Xerox Corporation announced that it will acquire outsourcing entity Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) for about $6.4 billion in a cash and stock deal.
Indian IT industry is passing through a difficult phase. Shrinking budgets, pressure on revenues and bottomline, competition from global bigwigs are staring at the home-grown software multinationals who have to adjust to a new scenario than the one they have been used to so far.
In a way, the game is just beginning now.
There was never a dull moment for bad news during the year, given the fact that Satyam's founder B Ramalinga Raju came out of the closet with an accounting fraud on January 7. The scam tarnished the credibility of India's IT story, requiring others to do a lot of convincing to retain clients.
As dramatic it was, the World Bank, within a week of the Satyam scam coming to light, announced it had banned, besides Satyam, Wipro and Megasoft from working for it for allegedly "providing improper benefits to the Bank staff" during the course of their projects with it. While the cases dated back to mid-2007, the timing of the disclosures only helped compound the woes of the IT industry.
To give the government its due credit, it acted swiftly by superseding the Satyam Board, which brought in new auditors to restate accounts, and ascertained employee count and within months found a new owner in Tech Mahindra. Satyam has since been renamed Mahindra Satyam.
Multiple agencies probed the scam, whose size was initially estimated at Rs 7,800 crore, and Raju, once a celebrated IT icon, is in custody awaiting trial.
2009 also saw the software exporting community trying hard to keep their margins as clients cut down on IT spends. The huge forex losses due to fluctuation of rupee didn't help them either.
Bulk of IT companies' revenue comes from the US and Europe and they earn more when the dollar is stronger.
Although the dollar was stronger, many of them had hedged against a stronger rupee - which it was in 2007 - thus losing out any which way.
The fallout of this was that top Indian IT companies, which used to hire up to 25,000 people annually, put recruitment on hold. Many of them, including Infosys, postponed campus recruitments.
Talking of Infosys, its poster-boy Nandan Nilekani left the IT company he helped found to join the government for a project to give every Indian citizen a unique identity number.
Globally, the industry saw a few mergers and acquisitions. In April, US business software company Oracle Corporation announced that it would buy its Silicon Valley rival Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion in cash.
The takeover has moved Oracle, the world's second-largest software maker, into the server and storage computers market, placing it against IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
In September, the world's second largest PC maker Dell Inc entered into an agreement to acquire computer services firm Perot Systems for about $3.9 billion, making it one of the biggest deals in the IT space since the global financial turmoil hit the sector. The acquisition was aimed at helping Dell foray into the software space.
Copier major Xerox Corporation announced that it will acquire outsourcing entity Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) for about $6.4 billion in a cash and stock deal.
Indian IT industry is passing through a difficult phase. Shrinking budgets, pressure on revenues and bottomline, competition from global bigwigs are staring at the home-grown software multinationals who have to adjust to a new scenario than the one they have been used to so far.
In a way, the game is just beginning now.
Accenture, Infosys, TCS, Wipro
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
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
CTS, new openings
Cognizant makes 700 job offers at Anna Univ campus
IT services major, Cognizant on Tuesday announced that it has made 700 job offers to students of Anna University’s constituent colleges in Chennai.
Coming in the top slot among bulk recruiters, Cognizant picked up the students through a two-day long campus recruitment process covering students from almost all branches of the UG and PG programmes.
Welcoming the ‘future Cognizant associates," Cognizant corporate marketing and research VP R Ramkumar said Anna University, along with its constituent colleges, is the largest contributor to Cognizant’s talent pool of fresh graduates in each of the last several years across India.
"It is with justifiable pride that we can say that the alumni of this reputable institution, along with several others globally, have helped sculpt Cognizant with a difference," he said handing over the list of selected students to the University vice-chancellor, Prof R Mannar Jawahar.
"One critical aspect of our recruiting is the fact that we are branch/discipline agnostic. This helps us substantially today in solving the business problems of customers across industries by leveraging technology. With structural changes happening across industries and sub-industries, there is an increasing need for much deeper domain specialisation.," Mr Ramkumar added.
Noting that in addition to students from core circuit branches (computing, electronic, electrical and instrumentation), he said the students from different disciplines of study added immense value to Cognizant.
Coming in the top slot among bulk recruiters, Cognizant picked up the students through a two-day long campus recruitment process covering students from almost all branches of the UG and PG programmes.
Welcoming the ‘future Cognizant associates," Cognizant corporate marketing and research VP R Ramkumar said Anna University, along with its constituent colleges, is the largest contributor to Cognizant’s talent pool of fresh graduates in each of the last several years across India.
"It is with justifiable pride that we can say that the alumni of this reputable institution, along with several others globally, have helped sculpt Cognizant with a difference," he said handing over the list of selected students to the University vice-chancellor, Prof R Mannar Jawahar.
"One critical aspect of our recruiting is the fact that we are branch/discipline agnostic. This helps us substantially today in solving the business problems of customers across industries by leveraging technology. With structural changes happening across industries and sub-industries, there is an increasing need for much deeper domain specialisation.," Mr Ramkumar added.
Noting that in addition to students from core circuit branches (computing, electronic, electrical and instrumentation), he said the students from different disciplines of study added immense value to Cognizant.
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