Allen Lam, a former Infosys BPO senior management member, who was asked to leave the company on “ethical grounds” following a six-month jail term this July in Hong Kong on charges of insider trading during his stint with CLSA in 2005, has now been banned from the industry for life by Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission.
 
Lam was with Infosys Technologies as head of its Asia-Pacific BPO business for around two years and reported to Amitabh Chaudhry, whose resignation as Infosys BPO’s CEO & MD was confirmed by the company yesterday. He also was known to Chaudhry before joining Infosys. He was dismissed from Infosys after pleading guilty and being jailed this July. Lam, according to a Bloomberg report pleaded guilty on insider trading and was jailed for six months and fined $8,900.

Insider trading carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and fines of up to HK$10 million in Hong Kong. T V Mohandas Pai, Head of Human Resources and Administration, and member of the Board of Infosys, said the company took action against Lam when he had been indicted. To a question whether Lam was recommended by Chaudhry, he said, “He (Chaudhry) knew him, but we pick up people based on the merit”. Chaudhry is serving the notice period till January 15, his last working day in the company. Pai said efforts were on to find a successor to Chaudhry. Source

Amitabh Chaudhry, who grew Infosys’ BPO revenues to $250 million last year from around $85 million in 2006, submitted his resignation to the company in order to pursue other professional opportunities, an Infosys BPO spokesman confirmed on Monday.

“It is a professional move, however he will be around the company for some time,” an Infosys spokesman told ET. He declined to provide details about how long Mr Chaudhry will serve the company.

Mr Chaudhry took over from Akshaya Bhargava in 2005 to lead Infosys’ BPO business as its CEO, and played an instrumental role in several strategic initiatives including $38 million acquisition of McCamish Systems earlier this month. During his tenure, Infosys’ BPO revenues grew at around 72%. (more…)

The cyber cell of Pune police arrested one more person in the data theft case from ProBPO service, a city-based business process outsourcing company.

According to police, Jayesh Prakash Bhagchandani (24) of Nashik was involved in selling confidential medical records of patients treated at one of the top hospitals in UK. The police had earlier arrested Vikas Dhairyashil Bansode of Uttam Nagar who was the director of ProBPO service+ in Kothrud. Police had also booked one John alias Kunal Gargatti of Karnataka who managed to get anticipatory bail.

NASSCOM official Paresh Vinayak Degaonkar had lodged the police complaint. Police said UK-based Scanning and Data solution had a contract with ProBPO in the city for processing data of medical records of patients. It was revealed that the BPO was selling the confidential data without the consent of SDS, when a UK-based news channel succeeded in buying the record of patients during its sting operation last month.One more arrested in BPO data theft case. Source

The information technology (IT) sector in Bengal, which started in Calcutta and later forayed into Siliguri and Durgapur, is eyeing another destination in the state — Kharagpur. IBM Daksh, the BPO arm of IBM, has expressed an interest in setting up a facility in Kharagpur, state IT minister Debesh Das said on Wednesday. IBM Daksh could not be reached for comment on the matter.

“IBM Daksh wants to open shop in Kharagpur and has asked for 2 acres there. We will soon start the process of acquiring land in Kharagpur,” Das said on Wednesday at the stone laying ceremony of an IT park behind Science City. The proposed IT park, to be developed by Webel and the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), will come up on a 2-acre plot at an investment of Rs 40 crore. It is expected to be completed within 15 months from the date of start of construction, which is yet to be decided.

“We hope the locational advantage will ensure tenants for the IT park,” Das said. (more…)

Under a definitive agreement, Infosys BPO Ltd., a subsidiary of Infosys Technologies, will acquire all of McCamish Systems LLC’s outstanding interests. The combination is expected to enable McCamish, which provides solutions to the insurance and financial services industries leveraging their proprietary VPAS, PMACS and Deferral+ platforms, to service larger portfolios of transactions for clients and expand into global markets. This will establish Infosys as a key player in providing business platform services.

The upfront consideration for the deal is $38 million with up to an additional $20 million payable to the sellers if McCamish Systems achieves certain financial targets in the future. The acquisition is expected to enhance Infosys’ capability to deliver end-to-end business solutions for the insurance and financial services industries.

“We look forward to this combination with McCamish, and welcome an exceptional group of professionals with strong skill sets to the Infosys family, who will enrich our service capabilities in the USA,” says Amitabh Chaudhry, CEO and MD, Infosys BPO. “The deal will enable us to bring together a convergence of operations and technology. Infosys BPO has in-depth knowledge of the insurance and financial services sector, and this deal reinforces our leadership position in providing business platform services. Also, this will contribute positively to our strategy of growing non-linear revenue.” Source

Infosys BPO, the back-office unit of IT firm Infosys Technologies, on Monday said 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 told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. The 300-million Infosys subsidiary recently signed an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government to set up rural BPO centres in 22 districts of the state.

Infosys BPO, gets significant part of its business from North America and Europe. To bag more clients, it is said to be looking at aligning with Finacle, the banking solution business of its parent. Infosys BPO is also reportedly planning to set up a new delivery centre in the United States before the end of this financial year.

The back-office services wing of Infosys has eight delivery centres across the globe, including in Mexico, but it did not have a centre in the US so far. Infosys BPO registered revenues of $71.3 million with a net profit of $16.3 million for the September quarter. Source

The global business process outsourcing (BPO) was one of the few sectors that defied the financial crunch to record growth that is expected to rise further in coming years. Last year, the global market for BPO stood at about $36 billion, a 28 per cent increase from the previous year’s $28 billion. The local BPO sector has been flat of late but players are making positive projections.

“Since August, there has been an increase in interest from international firms seeking to outsource some of their services,” said Mr Nicholas Nesbitt, the CEO of KenCall, a dominant player in BPO. He added that in the next six to nine months, the company expects to sign up 10-15 local clients. At least 85 per cent of the local BPO business comes from external sources.

The local BPO market is estimated to have a potential annual revenue of Sh400 million. According to analysts, two factors will play a key role in the sector’s growth — improvement in the country’s ICT infrastructure, and the desire by organisations to reduce their cost of operation. “The fibre optic technology has resulted in better communication at reduced bandwidth cost and the international firms we have been talking to are partly drawn by this,” Mr Nesbitt said. (more…)

A BPO employee jumped from the top of his house and ended his life in Murugeshapalya on Tuesday afternoon.  The Airport police gave identified the deceased as Amarkanth (27), a bachelor from Patna in Bihar and employed with HTMT. For the last three years, Amarkanth was living along with his friend at a rented accommodation.

Amarkanth’s friend told Deccan Herald, “For the last few months, Amarkanth looked depressed as he was being harassed by his team leader. He was not liked by his team leader and whenever Amarkanth approached with a leave requisition, he was looked down upon and humiliated. He was extremely unhappy with the developments in the office and had also planned to quit. He thought things might change after taking a break and managed to avail leave, but after his return, situation worsened and this further let him down.

“Amarkanth used to share his feelings with his colleagues. Of late, he was negative and often he said that he has lost interest in life due to the harassment meted out by his team leader. For the fortnight, Amarkanth rarely interacted with his friends, but we didn’t think that he would take the extreme step,” added his friend. (more…)

Is the IT industry witnessing a silent revival of sorts? Well, the signals seem to clearly suggest as much. Take, for instance, the latest forecast from Nasscom, the apex software industry body. Nasscom expects at least 70,000-80,000 engineering grads who passed out in June 2009 and were offered jobs in their 5th and 6th semesters by TCS, Infosys and Accenture, among others, to get absorbed by March 2010. Not too long ago, there were apprehensions that the appointments of these tech grads could get deferred till 2011 in the aftermath of the global slowdown. That perception appears to have changed.

Speaking to ET, Nasscom vice-president Sangeeta Gupta said: “There’s some amount of pick-up in IT spending and clients have become active in the decision-making process. This augurs well for the IT industry and is likely to result in hiring by IT companies. Companies like TCS, Infosys and Accenture, among others, are expected to start honouring the offers they made. As a result, at least 70k-80k engineering graduates, who were issued offer letters, are expected to get absorbed by March 2010.”  Full News

The Philippines may find itself no longer on top of mind among companies wanting to outsource and offshore some of their functions if nothing is done to boost global awareness of what the country has to offer.

Oscar Sañez, president and chief executive of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines, admitted that the country, although an established presence in the business process outsourcing space, faced tough competition from other emerging BPO destinations.

He said Vietnam, Malaysia and Sri Lanka had been advertising heavily these past months to market themselves as potential BPO locations. Even industry powerhouse India had invested a significant amount to launch global advertising campaigns that spanned international publications and television channels. (more…)