Software exporter Wipro Ltd announced its results for the three months ended September that saw a 14.4% rise in profits to Rs1,161.7 crore, compared with Rs1,015.5 crore in the June quarter. The company’s senior management—Suresh Senapathy, executive director and chief financial officer (CFO), and Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani, both executive directors and joint chief executive officers—spoke in an interview about the company’s performance. Edited excerpts:

Your guidance for the next quarter is quite optimistic at 4.5–5% growth at the top end. What’s making you so bullish?

Paranjpe: The plus side is that a broad-based growth (has happened) across all our industry verticals (business segments), whether it is telecom service provider, manufacturing, or retail. We are seeing strong growth…in Europe, America and Asia. So what gives us confidence is that we are not driven by one or two verticals but it’s much (more) broad-based on the ground. (more…)

Technology major Wipro on Tuesday said it has increased market visibility and expects more stability in business volumes and pricing in  the coming quarters. During Q2, Wipro posted consolidated total income of Rs 7057.4 crore and net profit of Rs 1,162 crore, a year on year growth of 6% and 19% respectively. The company’s IT services brought in revenues of Rs 4,996 crore, a growth of 5%.

Addressing a media conference to announce the company’s second quarter results, Wipro chairman Azim Premji said there was a certain amount of optimism and positive news in the market, though the macro picture remained fragile and clients continued to focus on cost cuts and capital conservation.

‘‘In my talks with CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies, I find the sentiment more upbeat than before,” he said. Infosys and TCS, which announced their Q2 results earlier this month, had also signalled the beginnings of a recovery from the downturn the tech sector suffered following the crisis in the financial sector that hit many of their core clients. (more…)

The Rural Development Department of Andhra Pradesh government and Infosys BPO Limited today signed a Memorandum Of Understanding(MoU) for setting up rural BPO centres in 22 districts across the state. Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) Chief Executive Officer T Vijaya Kumar and Infosys BPO Limited CEO and Managing Director Amitabh Chaudhry signed the MoU in the presence of Chief Minister K Rosaiah, State Rural Development minister Vatti Vasantha Kumar and other senior officials here.

Chaudhry said that one rural BPO centre would be set up in each of the 22 districts.

“The first such BPO centre will be set up in the next six weeks which will provide a testing ground for this model. The capital expenditure and other details will be worked out subsequently,” he said. (more…)

The revenue department has created needless uncertainty on the tax liability of foreign parents and principals of business entities in India, by suddenly withdrawing a 40-year old circular. It needs to bring out another circular at the earliest, clarifying that its intention is not to endanger India’s thriving outsourcing industry, particularly the captive units which generate about 35% of the sector’s revenue.

The Income Tax Act requires foreign companies to include in their income taxable in India any income arising from or through its business connection in India.

There are no clear-cut rules to define a business connection. The circular that has now been withdrawn had been successfully interpreted, to the chagrin of the tax department, to put the income generated for a foreign company by a business process outsourcing unit in India outside the ambit of taxation in India.

The only condition was that the foreign client should fully compensate the Indian BPO for its services, something that is not readily guaranteed if the Indian BPO is a subsidiary of the foreign client.  Full news

To lure the business process outsourcing and IT/ITeS industry, the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh has showered various sops. The realty sector, too, has been blessed with many relaxations.

IT majors and BPOs setting up units in UP will get 100 per cent relaxation in stamp duty. Those setting up call centres can now get a land lot in UP on easier terms.

In a meeting of the state cabinet chaired by the CM on Friday, all development authorities in the state have been directed accordingly. IT companies have been given huge relaxations in the lease rent on land allotted to them. IT and BPO industries can now complete construction on the land allotted to them in five years instead of three years.

The government has decided to reduce the lease rent on commercial land by more than 60 per cent. The cabinet also decided that those getting a commercial plot through open bidding by March 31, 2010, will have to pay just one per cent lease rent instead of the earlier rate of 2.5 per cent. (more…)

Three persons were arrested from the city after a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company in Vastrapur lodged a complaint against them, accusing them of data theft. The stolen data, said police, was extremely valuable. Vastrapur police station officials have booked the trio for theft and breach of trust.

According to police officials, the BPO authorities lodged a complaint against two employees, Sheral Thakar, working with the networking department of the company, and Rahul Zatakiya, working with web development department, along with Abhijit Ghosle, a former employee of the company on Friday for the theft of data from the company database.

The theft was going on for almost three months in which, according to officials, the company lost thousands of virtual datasheets. As per ongoing rate, a complete database fetches US $ 5 to $ 6 in international market. The officials maintained that the theft has not yet resulted into financial loss but virtual loss is inevitable. (more…)

More than the uncertainty of the upcoming elections and the weakening dollar, business process outsourcing industry players in the country are concerned about Malacañang’s penchant for long weekends as this affect their business costs.

Business Processing Association of the Philippines president and chief executive Oscar Sanez said the industry’s cost of doing business remained high, and this was exacerbated by the many holidays that required companies to pay their employees extra.

“It’s good that (Malacañang) gives us a list of the holidays in advance as this gives companies a chance to include these extras into their planning. It’s the unannounced holidays that we’re concerned about,” he said in an interview. (more…)

The Essar group is considering merger of Essar Information Technology Holdings (EITH), which provides common services operations across the
group, with its BPO firm Aegis. The diversified Essar group formed EITH three years ago to consolidate common functions such as finance and accounting (F&A), human resources (HR), and payroll to its business arms in steel, oil, shipping, power, telecom and retail.

The merger will help Aegis diversify into areas such F&A, HR and payroll, as well as bring industry-specific knowledge within the company. It will also help Aegis get a higher valuation when it goes public. The Ruias of the Essar group have, at various forums, hinted that they eventually hope to take their BPO business public. Aegis CEO and MD Aparup Sengupta confirmed the merger move.

Mr Sengupta said: “We already run a shared service operation, but that is currently limited to Aegis. Whenever we acquire a firm, we move its back office functions to our common platform. This has helped us keep our sales and general administrative expenses low and maintain our margins.” So far, Aegis has acquired 14 firms and its stated goal has been to do at least one acquisition every quarter.

Around 1,000 people could move to Aegis as a result of the merger. The profile and compensation structure of the EITH employees could be different from the Aegis staff because some of the work done at EITH requires chartered accounts and management graduates.

The Essar group had hired Vijay Mehra as global CIO to chart out a common IT strategy for the group.

ET had first reported that the group was building a shared services operation similar to what many global firms have done earlier. Mr Mehra recently quit the Essar group and moved to Patni Computer as executive vice-president and head (business verticals). The group is currently in the process of searching for a new CIO to replace Mr Mehra. Source

About 50 workers of a BPO here who were reportedly dismissed from their jobs today, staged a protest here, police said.

Police said the workers, were reportedly dismissed for allegedly underperforming staged a protest outside the office in Vijay Nagar area. Source

INTEGRATED critical power, cool and management services provider APC by Schneider Electric is targeting the country’s booming business process outsourcing industry to further expand its market here.

In a briefing, APC Philippines country general manager Philippe Reveilhac said the company’s thrust of ensuring efficient use of energy in large data centers was in line with BPO providers’ aim to optimize the use of their resources.

He said power and cooling were among the biggest challenges for companies with large data centers. BPO firms, in particular, would greatly benefit from efficient power and cooling as they would be able to reduce their overall costs. (more…)