Women are vital part of India's IT workforce'

Bangalore, Nov 19: NASSCOM President Som Mittal on Wednesday, Nov 19 said Women consttuted a vital part of India's IT workforce and the industry will continue to attract more women employees and leaders.

Speaking at the third annual IT Women Leadership Summit here he said the Indian IT-BPO industry was a highly diverse and an inclusive industry. It has set world class HR policies in all areas including recruitments, training, retaining and promoting strategic business plans. NASSCOM announced the winners of Gender Inclusivity Awards at the Summit. The awards, in the second year now, honour companies in the IT-BPO industry which have implemented outstanding practices that promote gender empowerment and women leadership development.

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Layoffs: Techies turn to trade union

NEW DELHI: The software industry is willing to talk to the sector's trade union on layoffs and other work-related issues, a top official of the
industry's representative body said.

"If you want to talk to me why should I refuse simply because the colour of your shirt is red or green or whatever," Raju Bhatnagar, vice president for business process outsourcing (BPO) and government relations at the National Association of Software Companies (Nasscom) told IANS.

Nasscom will be meeting the Union for Information and Technology-enabled Services (Unites) has enlisted the help of the Switzerland-based Union Network International (UNI).

"Yes, we will be meeting union officials but date is not confirmed," Bhatnagar said.

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Slowdown cools attrition in outsourcing industry

Bangalore: First they tried bonuses. Then award programmes, and long-term planning for career. But the US financial crisis has helped Indian outsourcing firms do what they couldn’t quite do on their own: get employees to stick around.

Business process outsourcing (BPO) companies have struggled for years with a labour pool largely defined by young workers who hopped from one employer to another, and stayed with one, on average, for only 11 months. But that was before several of the world’s largest banks collapsed, the credit markets froze, and people started to worry more about whether or not they had a job than how good a job it was.
The BPO industry’s churn rate has come down below 20% in the third quarter, down from 35% in 2007, and the low 20s earlier this year.

At outsourcing firm Genpact Ltd, often considered an industry benchmark, attrition dropped from 31% last year to 24% in the first half of this year. “Is that the impact of the market around us, or the impact of the absolutely outstanding work that Piyush Mehta and his team are doing?” asks Genpact’s human resources head Piyush Mehta. “I don’t want to completely exclude what we have done, but it is mostly the market impact.”

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BPO sector on track to meet growth target

The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry is on track to meet its year end growth target as it employed 345,000 workers during the first half of the year.

"The industry employed 345,000 workers for the first six months of the year and we are hoping that we will meet our yearend target of 420,000," Business Process Outsourcing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) president Oscar Sanez said in an interview.

The offshoring and outsourcing (O&O) industry earned $5.8 billion for the first half of this year. "We are on track to meet our full year revenue target of $6.8 billion," Sanez said.

According to Sanez, O&O revenue for the first six months of the year is up 1.8 percent when compared to the same period the previous year.

Sanez said the slowdown in the world economy had no adverse effects on the industry. "The first half results are encouraging. I think we will meet our target stated in the 2010 roadmap."

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MNYL signs outsourcing deal

IBM India has entered into USD450 million IT outsourcing contract with private insurance player Max New York Life MNYL. The technology services behemoth, which has already showcased the advantage of total IT outsourcing with the telecom major Bharti, is expecting this deal to pan out in the similar manner. The deal, spread over ten years, will see IBM India providing complete end to end back end IT infrastructure to MNYL. IBM India global technology services vice president Nipun Mehrotra said, This life insurance is a growing market and the work we have done has the potential to change the sector.it is likely to change in similar lines to what happened in telecom sector.

According to IRDA, the market for insurance both life and non-life in 2006 2007 stood at USD41.74 billion, with the life insurance market growing at 47.38 percent while the non life business rose by 21.51 percent. It is estimated that life insurance market alone is expected to touch USD80 billion in the next couple of years.

Life insurance premium collections including single premium, first year and renewal in 2006 20007 stood at Rs 1.56 lakh crore representing a year on year growth of 47.38 percent. IRDA statistics indicates that the Indian insurance market accounts for a paltry 1.12 percent of the global insurance market estimated to be at USD3,723 billion.

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Indian IT Services market to grow to USD 8.1 bn by 2011

IT majors in India have been dependent on international markets since a very long time. But the newly published report from Springboard Research should compel them to thing otherwise and concentrate on the domestic market as well. According to the report, the Indian IT services market is set to grow from USD 4.1 billion in 2007 to USD 8.1 billion by 2011 at a CAGR of 18.6 percent.

The report highlights that the Indian IT services market is heavily dominated by infrastructure services which is expected to grow to USD 4.27 billion by 2011. Application services is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 19.6 percent and IT consulting is expected to reach USD 400 million by 2011. The report says that enterprise IT outsourcing in India will grow at a CAGR of 24.4 percent.

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BPO opportunity seen in UK due to UK 'knowledge worker' shortage

MANILA, Philippines--The current shortage of "knowledge workers" in the United Kingdom is good news for the country's outsourcing push in Europe.

A recent report from The Work Foundation, a London-based research and consultancy firm, said that the UK will need to attract more highly skilled workers from overseas for its high technology and "'knowledge intensive" industries.

The report's author noted that numbers are "relatively low," with only 167,000 high skilled workers in the country.

Reached for comment, Stephanie Weber, European IT Services Center (EITSC) business development manager, said UK companies have been suffering from the skills shortage for some time now.

According to the report, Filipinos are the third largest group of highly-skilled migrant workers, with a population of around 10,000. Indian nationals are by far the largest group with more than 45,000 followed by about 25,000 workers from the United States.

Next to the Philippines is South Africa (8,000) and Australia (6,500).

Under the previous work permit regime in the UK, 24 percent of highly skilled migrants were ICT professionals, 13 per cent were service managers and almost 10 percent in the healthcare sector.

US slowdown puts BPO buyouts on fast track

MUMBAI: The BPO deal space for acquisitions is looking hot again after a lull for over the last six months. The US slowdown is pushing more third-party outsourcing firms and captive operations to sell out, according to industry players and investment bankers. Compared to the last quarter when both potential targets and buyers were in a wait-and-watch mode, large third-party BPO firms and integrated IT and BPO players are now keen on using their cash reserves to gain scale and new service lines, while potential targets that were holding out hoping for a recovery in their valuations are now interested in exiting before further value erosion happens Many of the smaller players which are unable to scale up are now looking to sell out. Some of the investors in these companies were planning to exit through IPOs but given the market conditions they cannot go IPO now. Many multinationals with captive back office operations of less than 5,000 people are also in the market,” said one large IT and BPO player. Read more News...

BPO scales a new peak with version 3.0

NEW DELHI: Move over night long slogs on mundane outsourcing jobs. The $9-billion business process outsourcing (BPO) sector has graduated to the third generation services, or BPO Ver 3.0. Thanks to moving up the ladder many of the over 5,00,000 staff now see a meaningful career in outsourcing and companies are able to get tasks with higher billing rates. Sample the work in BPO 3.0: developing structured products for investment banks, using Monte Carlo simulation (statistical tools, in common lingo) based patent valuation, providing actionable legal and engineering reports for products that can be launched in multiple global markets and more.

This is far too complex from what the industry started with — that is, transcribing medical records, answering phone calls and data entry (BPO Ver 1.0). Later the firms graduated to doing problem solving and decision-making tasks such as processing insurance claims or enhancing limit on credit cards. That was BPO Version 2.0.

While the third version is being incorporated by BPOs over the last few months, it is still in its infancy. What distinguishes itself perhaps from the other versions is that the companies are recruiting experts with up to 15 years of experience and the higher billing rates.
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Indians write the BPO script in Philippines

NEW DELHI: BPO firms, which have so far been big job creators in India, are now shifting employees from here to emerging outsourcing destinations, including the Philippines.

Not only are domestic BPOs like Genpact, Sitel and Intelenet hiring people in India in droves for their Philippine operations, MNCs like Citibank and Accenture with operations in that country, too, are relying on Indian talent.

“While at the associate level, the Philippines has talent that is comparable or superior to their Indian counterparts, there is a complete void at middle and senior management level. It’s largely Indian executives who fill this void at Indian, local and captive BPO firms in the Philippines,” says Quatrro BPO Solutions managing director Raman Roy.

The Philippines has emerged as an attractive rival outsourcing destination to India, on the back of its large English-speaking population, a slew of fiscal incentives and lower property rates. Apart from the capital, Manila, other places — Cebu, for instance — have also come up as favourites for setting up call centres.
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Opportunities Available to IT and BPO Vendors in Major Latin American

DUBLIN, Ireland–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “Global Delivery Locations for BPO - Focus on Latin America (Strategic Focus)” report to their offering.


Introduction : A detailed analysis of Latin America’s capabilities as a sourcing location for IT outsourcing and BPO services.


Scope : - This report looks at the opportunities available to IT and BPO vendors in major Latin American locations such as Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.


- It also covers developing markets such as Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay.

- It contains analysis of the leading players in the Latin American market, including both local and international providers.

- The report also offers recommendations to vendors about how best to utilize Latin America as part of a coherent sourcing strategy.


Report Highlights : - Latin America is becoming an increasingly popular destination for IT services and BPO vendors who are looking to provide low-cost services to clients.


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Indian IT and BPO sectors will ramp up its staff by four times

Indian IT and BPO sectors will ramp up its staff by four times from its existing workforce of two million to eight million by 2018, with Tier 2/3 cities contributing two million of the target, according to a recent study.


Currently, the top 7 IT-BPO locations in India contribute almost 90% of the workforce, but in a decade’s time, trade body Nasscom and management consultant A T Kearney expects that to move down to 75% and the rest by the other cities.


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Banking Services: Providing IT and BPO Services to Banks

Banks continue to use technology intensively to trim costs and increase revenues. Apart from economic conditions, regulatory issues, competitive pressures and changing customer needs that have contributed to the changes of the sector, technology has truly revolutionized the industry. In today's competitive scenario, banks can still improve their performance and bottom lines by carefully allocating technology funds for measurable returns on investment.

Hexaware focuses on providing IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) services to banks across the world. Explore Hexaware's key projects and features as well as market trends that have translated into large outsourcing engagements, including the restructuring of core leasing applications as well as the development and support of mission critical systems.

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BPOs grapple with inflation

IT-BPO firms, which are already facing a US slowdown and currency fluctuations, are now busy in firming up their plans to tackle a rising inflation in the country and its impact on salary, sales, general and administrative (SG&A) and travel costs, which can dent their profit margins.

According to analysts, the immediate impact of a rising inflation would be on salary. Avinash Vashishta, Tholons Investment Advisory Research, said: "Salaries will now have to be hiked by more than what the companies had decided. Last year, there was almost a 15 per cent rise in salary, while this year it may go up by 8-9 per cent."

Most companies, including India's largest IT services provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Satyam , implemented their annual wage hike in the first quarter of the financial year beginning April 1. Others such as Wipro do it during the year. If inflation continues throughout the year the firms would have to effect a mid-term hike or raise the salary by a good measure in the next financial year.

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