Tech Mahindra has intensified its efforts to synergise the operations of its business process outsourcing (BPO) arm and Satyam BPO, formerly Nipuna Services, to offer wider range of services to its clients. According to a person close to the development, Sujit Bakshi, president, corporate affairs, Tech Mahindra, had camped in Hyderabad for two days to speak to the management team of Satyam BPO and understand its working and its strengths.

Tech Mahindra BPO offers integrated services across enterprise support functions such as finance and accounting, human resources, enterprise support and market research and data analytics. While Satyam BPO, which had been second in a global outsourcing survey, leads in high-end services such as specialty space, offering services in manufacturing support, geospatial, visualisation, and artwork and pack management to Fortune 500
companies. (more…)

There is big, solid Brahms this weekend at Kleinhans Music Hall. The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, led by colorful guest conductor Bruno Ferrandis, is playing Arnold Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’ Piano Quartet, Op. 25. The other half of the concert is the Second Piano Concerto, with Norman Krieger at the keyboard.

The quartet arrangement is supposed to come first, and the concerto second. But Saturday, the order was switched. I didn’t think the new order would make sense. I thought that the piano concerto would be what you wanted to go out into the night with. But it ended up that the Schoenberg/Brahms creation was the climax.

Not that the concerto was not lovely. It was. What a slow movement this concerto has — delirious, you could almost say. The last movement is all but designed to bring an audience to its feet. It is a massive, muscular concerto, great for the BPO with its horns and trombones. It is thrilling.  Full News

Wipro Technologies, the third-largest IT services exporter from India, has announced that it would recruit 8,000 employees to its business process outsourcing (BPO) arm Wipro BPO by this financial year.

The BPO arm would begin recruitment drives in major cities and towns in the next two weeks. The company would recruit undergraduates and graduates from Tier II and III cities for its customer support and technical help desk segments.

According to reports, the company has revealed that out of total proposed vacancies, 1,200 staffers would be added to its 30-acre Hyderabad facility. With this addition, the total headcount at the Hyderabad unit would rise to 4,150.

Wipro BPO, which began its operations in 2001-02, had over 21,000 employees with a turnover of $290 million (Rs 2,250 crore) in 2007-08. Source

Sparsh BPO service, the domestic BPO subsidiary of Intelenet Global Services Pvt Ltd, on Wednesday announced the launch of its second delivery centre here.

The 450-seater centre would provide multi-lingual services in English, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu across a range of verticals to deliver contact centre management including customer support servies, collections and sales.

This centre is the company’s fourth centre in the south and 19th in the country. - PTI  Source

India’s largest BPO, Genpact, has taken measures to protect its employees in Mexico against the H1N1 swine influenza. “Genpact would like to confirm that the State of Chihuahua, where its Mexico operations are based, has not detected any case of infection or death from the H1N1 swine influenza, designated as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by WHO,” said the company in a communication to its Mexico employees.

“The Genpact team in Latin America has moved swiftly to educate employees about the outbreak. The company has requested employees suffering from fever, cough, diarrhoea or vomiting to seek medical assistance immediately and stay at home. Optimum cleanliness levels are also being maintained in the company’s premises,” said the statement. The company is implementing similar measures at other facilities in countries that are likely to be hit by the virus.

India’s second-largest IT services provider, Infosys Technologies, which had 221 employees located in Mexico at the end of the fourth quarter of FY09, has said that none of the company’s employees in Mexico has been affected by the flu. The company has not issued any travel advisory to its employees. Full News

Penang has been named as one of the new emerging information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) destinations that would allow companies to provide diversity to their global operations and reduce their costs of doing business, according to KPMG’s Exploring Global Frontiers report. In a statement here Thursday, executive director and head of KPMG’s Business Performance Services, Woon Tai Hai, said Penang has all the strengths to become a major outsourcing hub.

He said the island was rated the 10th best place to live in Asia by ECA International in 2006 and boasted key IT-BPO companies such as Intel, IBM, Motorola and Citicorp as its stalwarts. Woon said in 2007, the IT-BPO exports from the island were estimated at a whopping US$564 million (US$1=RM3.53).

He said Penang also offered lower cost and access to a high growth potential market. (more…)