The two new commercial outfits in the city– the global outsourcing firm Capgemini, and the research company with offices in New York and Singapore, Netcribes – not only bodes well for the future of Gurgaon, but goes to show how the city still has enough potential to attract capital from all over the world.

The notion that Gurgaon is no more the preferred destination for business and IT firms venturing into India no longer holds water, and according to industry experts, the city’s true potential is far from realized.

According to the local BPO and IT community, despite the very evident shortcomings in terms of lack of infrastructure and proper governance, Gurgaon still scores above Noida when it comes to attracting commercial units. “Gurgaon already has a business-friendly environment and the city is home to a number of BPO and IT firms. So it is easy for the newcomers to fit into the system,” said Subinder Khurana of the NASSCOM Regional Council Haryana, and the president of the Millennium City Welfare Society. Source

IT and BPO companies are calling on the academe to improve the skills of graduates so they can qualify for middle-management positions.

“By 2016 we will need to hire about 50,000 mid-level managers. Can we provide that?” asked Monchito Ibrahim, Commissioner of Cyber Services Group, during the ICT and BPO Conference yesterday at the Radisson Blu Hotel

With Cebu gaining the 9th spot in Tholon’s global survey of Top 10 Emerged Outsourcing Destinations, locators are expecting more from it.

To meet such demands, the workforce has to be strengthened by improving fundamental skills of Cebu’s graduates to increase their employability. (more…)

Suresh Vaswani is dipping into the precious talent pool of Wipro , his former employer, as he builds the back office business of Dell.

In his first senior hire since joining Dell as chairman for its India operations in April this year, Vaswani has reached out to an old colleague and former head of Wipro’s BPO division - Ashutosh Vaidya. According to at least three people familiar with the discussions, Vaidya is set to join his former boss as the head of Dell’s BPO business.

“In Vaidya, he (Vaswani) has found an ideal candidate to shape Dell’s BPO strategy,” said the first person adding that he expected an announcement to be made on this appointment within days. “Until that (announcement) happens, it’s not really done,” he added. (more…)

US President Barack Obama rode to power on the promise of stopping American jobs from being outsourced to India.

Ironically, the Indian IT and IT services companies targeted by him may actually be bailing out unemployed Americans by hiring thousands in BPO jobs, in a US economy still struggling to cope with the aftermath of the worst recession since World War II. Outsourcing has come full circle.

Take Aegis, the BPO arm of the Mumbai-based conglomerate Essar Group.

Aegis is one of the largest Indian employers in the US. It has over 5,000 US citizens on its payroll and plans to hire 10,000 more over the next three years.

“We have 10 centres operating in the US and more than 97 per cent of our employees are US citizens. (more…)

India’s largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has rejiged the top management deck of its UK arm Diligenta, as it seeks to grow the BPO business. It has named Phiroz Vandrevala, executive director of TCS, as the managing director and vice chairman of Diligenta. Vandrevala, 53, was the chairman of the six-year-old unit that started operations by acquiring the life and pension businesses of the Pearl Group.

According to the Tata Group policy, a person cannot hold the chairman and managing director’s post and so TCS’s MD N Chandrasekaran will now don the chairman’s role at Diligenta. The changes are with immediate effect, said a company statement. Following the changes, Vandrevala, who has been with TCS for several years, would cease to be its executive director.

He will, however, continue to be on the board of the $8-billion company but in a non-executive capacity. He joined the TCS board in 2005. The Pearl deal worth 486 million pounds, at one shot, made TCS the second largest firm in the UK to service the life and pension sector. In 2010, Diligenta acquired Unisys Insurance Services that brought business worth pounds 250 million. Diligenta employs over 1,500 people and counts Old Mutual, Sun Life Insurance among others as its clients. In 2009-10, Diligenta reported a net loss of Rs 56 crore on a turnover of Rs 456 crore. Source

Training institute NIIT Uniqua, a joint venture between IT training firm NIIT and BPO major Genpact on Thursday said they will impart technical and soft skill training for Uttar Pradesh Police personnel.

“We are pleased to join hands with NIIT UNiqua. I am confident that through this novel initiative of Seva 100 we will be able to reach timely and efficiently help citizens,” said Deputy Inspector General of Agra, Asim Arun in a statement.

Seva 100 is an initiative by the UP Police to extend timely help to public, wherein the aggrieved can make a call to emergency helpline number 100.

The main objective of this specialised programme is to give technical and soft skill training to police personnel in efficiently handling calls made to emergency number 100.

“This initiative has been under taken to help police force offer better and prompt assistance to people in times of emergency,” said Chockalingam Murugan, Head, NIIT Uniqua. Source

The frontrunner in the Indian BPO sector, Genpact, has reason to worry. The country’s largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, is fast catching up, with strategic acquisitions, strong patronage by its backbone IT business and big-ticket deals shrinking the BPO revenue gap between the two companies.

That gap was $471 million in calendar year 2008 and has now narrowed to $226 million. While the TCS BPO unit has posted a three-year compound annual growth rate of 40% since 2007, Genpact’s BPO business’ CAGR for the same period is 20%.

And though Genpact is not concerned about BPO arms of Infosys Technologies and Wipro, its chief operating officer NV Tyagarajan admits, “TCS is an exception in terms of competition. I consider TCS a different case from other IT-BPO companies, which haven’t been growing at a similar pace.” Full News

Buoyed by steady recovery in demand for technology services, the Indian IT-BPO sector is estimated to have grown 19% in 2010-11 to $76 billion in revenues, software industry lobby Nasscom said on Wednesday.

“Pent-up demand for IT-BPO services and return of discretionary spending in the market were the key drivers for the industry performance,” Nasscom president Som Mittal told reporters.

Exports continued to be the mainstay of the industry with revenues of $59 billion, growing at 18.7%. Domestic market, on the other hand, grew 16%, to aggregate rs 78,700 crore (about $17 billion).

For FY12, the software and services growth is expected to grow at 16-18% with $68-70 billion in revenues. The domestic market is estimated to grow by 15-17% with revenues of Rs 90,000-92,000 crore (about $19-20 billion).

“Increased technology adoption across government, corporates and small businesses for providing citizen services, enhanced internal controls and customer service led to an increase in outsourcing within the domestic market,” Mittal said.

However, the slow economic recovery in the US and uncertainty in t (more…)

India’s outsourcing industry is on the cusp of a significant change, shifting to knowledge-intensive and value-added services that call for a new way of functioning, says Darren Oberst

India still leads the global IT outsourcing market and its advantages over other regions are still distinct. The Indian domestic market has undergone a transformation over the past decade — rising from the periphery to emerge as a viable, high-potential opportunity for the country’s
IT-BPO sector.

Labour or cost arbitrage does not drive the domestic BPO market like in the global outsourcing market. It’s the need to scale rapidly, greater focus on core competencies , enhanced productivity, heightened competition and reduced time to market that is driving domestic demand.

While, the large enterprises with substantial resources have always outsourced a part of their operations, the mid-size and small organisations have been unable to explore this opportunity. With the increasing global competition, the small and mid-sized businesses are being forced to restructure their operations. Full News

According to a research report by the consulting firm Dun & Bradstreet Indian IT-BPO industry is expected to adopt the inorganic growth route in order to widen their service offerings and enter new geographical markets. It is expected that several third party and captive BPO units are likely to increasingly acquire small size companies to ramp up their revenue, clients acquisition, expand business segments and enhance geographical reach. “Consolidation will also be driven by international M&A deals, propelled by robustness of the Indian players,” the report said.

Indian IT-BPO industry has been seeing a spurt in consolidation with done deals like Sutherland Global Services’ acquisition of Adventity Global services, Hinduja Global Solutions’ acquisition of a UK based customer relationship management company, Careline Services, etc. Now a consortium of private-equity firms Apax Partners and iGate are close to buying 63 per cent of Patni Computer in a deal valued at about $915 million.

Increasing focus on fast growing domestic market for IT-BPO will be another trend for the industry. Dun & Bradstreet expects that in a booming economy domestic market is likely to grow rapidly driven by major government initiatives such as increased spending on e-governance and increased thrust on technology adoption/up-gradation across various government departments to bridge the gap of digital divide. “The Government of India has enacted a national e-Governance Plan (NeGP) which creates a big opportunity for the IT vendors to create an effective partnership. It has separately allocated US$9 billion for investment in NeGP projects till FY14.” Source