TCS, Infosys, Wipro give local flavour to foreign operations
January 4, 2010
Source:  IANS

NEW DELHI: India's large software service providers are going increasingly 
local with hiring in overseas markets, part of a drive to position themselves 
as truly global players and polish their image in advanced economies reeling 
from job losses.

Beginning with employing foreign nationals for junior and mid-level positions, 
companies such as Tata Consultancy (TCS), Infosys and Wipro 

“There’s a transition in mindset to grow out of the Indian mold and aspire to 
be like an Oracle , IBM, Accenture, SAP. Also, as Indian companies have gained 
scale they can tap the best foreign talent; earlier they had to settle for just 
about anyone,’’ says K Sudarshan, managing partner at executive search firm EMA 
Partners International.

In the past year, many of the top positions at Wipro Technologies have been 
filled by foreigners. American Martha Bejar left Microsoft to join India’s 
third largest software exporter as president, global sales and operations. Ralf 
Reich, a former Unisys executive in charge of strategic outsourcing in 
continental Europe, was appointed head of German operations. And Wipro’s 
centres in France and Japan are also headed by non-Indians.

Infosys’ German, French and Australian operations are managed by locals. Jackie 
Korhonen, ex-vice-president of managed business process services for IBM 
Australia and New Zealand, is now head of Infosys Australia.

“They want to be true multinationals. Besides, if you want to really penetrate 
a local market, bagging business from not only big companies but also small and 
medium, you better have a local face,’’ says Diptarup Chakraborti, principal 
research analyst, Gartner.

At TCS, India’s largest technology services company, foreign nationals comprise 
nearly 12% of the senior management. Among the key executives are John Lenzen, 
global head of marketing, Gabriel Rozman, global head of emerging markets and 
Carol Wilson, global business unit head, Hi-Tech solutions unit.

Amit Singh, head of the IT practice at Avendus Capital, says that Indian 
companies, used to expanding at 30%, are now seeing growth decline. “They want 
new avenues to maintain growth and hence the geographic expansion and local 
faces to drive it.’’

Indian software providers have also been expanding into new geographies in the 
past year. Infosys opened an office in Brazil in mid-December and in recent 
months Wipro started operations and ramped up investments in strategic 
development centres and near-shore centres like Atlanta (US), Bucharest 
(Romania), Wroclaw (Poland), Curitiba (Brazil), Chengdu (China) and Cebu 
(Philippines).

TCS, present in 42 countries, added its eighth delivery centre in Latin America 
in the Technology District of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Other new offices it 
opened overseas included in Mexico, Ohio and Cincinnati. “We leverage diversity 
as a key competence to enhance our global network delivery model. It also helps 
build our employer brand in overseas geographies,’’ says Ajoy Mukherjee, VP & 
head, Global HR, TCS. From about 4,000 foreign nationals in FY06, TCS had over 
10,000 foreign nationals at the end of FY09.

Wipro, says its senior vice-president for Talent Engagement & Development, 
Saurabh Govil, is proactively hiring local talent overseas. “Local talent works 
for us on several levels , like better knowledge of local markets, niche skills 
and availability of talent and very importantly, better knowledge of the 
customer.’’ Foreign nationals make up about a tenth of Wipro’s workforce and in 
offshore centres it’s as high as 25%. In offshore centres Wipro plans to expand 
its base of local employees to about 50% in the next few years.

Hiring foreigners as country heads and business unit heads is more common among 
technology companies than traditional product firms. IBM has about 80,000 
Indians in its 400,000-plus global workforce. Nearly a third of employees at 
Microsoft are non-American workforce and HP has about 60,000 employees in India 
out of a total 320,000 staff.

Indian companies are globalising their workforce as they expand to new markets 
and try to win work from governments overseas, much like multinationals such as 
IBM and HP. Indian IT businesses are dependent on global markets, not local, 
and as companies grow they need to counter xenophobia to avoid a backlash.

“Job losses to outsourcing is an emotional issue and increased local hiring at 
onsite and near-shore centres helps counter that. Besides it adds local flavour 
to the sales effort,’’ says Gartner’s Mr Chakraborti. 

HCL Info bags Rs 110 crore order from Gujarat government
January 4, 2010
SOURCE : PTI

NEW DELHI: HCL Infosystems today said it has bagged an order worth Rs 110 crore 
from the Gujarat government to supply and implement biometric
attendance and computer aided learning systems in over 7,000 schools across the 
state.

Under the scope of the contract, HCL will supply personal computers (PCs) with 
biometric finger print scanner and UPS to over 7,000 schools in the state, HCL 
Infosystem said in a statement.

HCL Infosystems, which makes, telecommunication and security equipment would 
also implement the biometric-based attendance system, offer facility management 
and run teacher training programmes, it added.

Out of the total schools to be covered, over 1,000 schools are under the Tribal 
Department and 6,000 under the Education Department.

"Under the existing programmes where the government has been giving grant for 
schools in the tribal area on the basis of student attendance, this system will 
enable generation of real time data and effective utilisation of grants for a 
transparent education system," Ajai Chowdhry, Chairman and Chief Executive 
Officer, HCL Infosystems Ltd said.

The system will also help the government to study education patterns and 
dropout rates across regions, he added.

IBM wins 10-year IT deal with Gujarat bank
January 4, 2010
SOURCE: ET Bureau

BANGALORE: IT major IBM India has signed a 10-year information technology (IT) 
services agreement with Sardar Bhiladwala Pardi People's Cooperative Bank in 
Gujarat, the company said Monday.

'The operational expenditure in the pay-as-you-use model will enable the 
leading cooperative bank to save up to 50 percent in its capex (capital 
expenditure) on IT infrastructure,' IBM said in a statement.

As part of the deal, IBM India will provide the 80-year-old bank managed 
continuity services comprising server management, network and security 
management and back-up and database management.

'This is a strategic win for us. It will enable us to focus on helping 
financial services clients,' IBM India director for integrated technology 
services Neeraj Sharma said.

The company, however, did not specify the value of the deal.

The bank's IT infrastructure requirements will be met remotely from IBM's 
global management centre in Bangalore.

'The deal with IBM will help us to enhance service offerings to our diverse 
customers, especially farmers, small traders and artisans,' bank's chairman 
Ajay C. Shah said.

The deal follows IBM's earlier pacts with banks such as Madhav Nagrik Sahakari 
Cooperative Bank in Rajasthan and Kurmanchal Nagar Sahkari Bank at Nainital in 
Uttarakhand.

The Pardi People's Cooperative Bank was established Dec 23, 1929 to provide 
loans with low interest rate to farmers, small traders and artisans. The bank 
was recognised as a scheduled cooperative bank in 2000 by the central bank.