UK woos investment from India in IT sector

Writankar Mukherjee, Kolkata
The Economic Times (Kolkata edition)
At a time when the global economy is showing signs of bottoming out, the UK government is going all out to attract Indian investment in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector. At least 50 Indian ICT companies have shown interest to either set up operations or expand their existing base in the UK, said UK Trade and Investment sector champion (digital technology and content) Dave Gorshkov.

Talking to ET during his visit to Kolkata on Monday, Gorshkov said UK is pitching hard to the Indian companies about its £17-billion worth of annual government ICT tenders.

“The recession has not impacted UK’s spending on IT. In fact, it has gone up by £1-billion since the government is seeing the benefits of e-governance. Equally large opportunities exist in the private sector,” he said.

“India’s leading IT companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL and Mastek already work on a significant number of e-governance projects in the UK. National Health Services has the largest IT budget in UK, estimated to be £9-billion alone. We expect such lucrative opportunities will attract several of the Indian companies,” said Gorshkov.

While the US is the largest contributor for FDI in the UK, India currently figures at the second position. “Even in the ICT sector, India is at the second slot for FDI inflows in UK. Some of the big Indian players are already present, but we now want to attract the tier II companies,” Gorshkov said.

Gorshkov said the UK government is also trying to encourage foreign ICT companies to create jobs in the UK. “However, some companies need to outsource jobs to locations like India to be commercially viable. Still, the government tries to ensure that the higher value, senior management and supervisory roles’ positions remain with UK citizens,” he said.

However, Gorshkov added that the cost of talent has also rationalised in the UK due to recession. “As a result, salaries of engineering human resource in the UK is now as attractive as in India. We expect this will also drive local employment in UK by the Indian companies,” he said.

State beats southern peers in IT infra projects

Subrahmanyan Viswanath, Bangalore
Deccan Herald
Recession may have put paid to big-ticket ambitions of global corporations. The economic slowdown, sending majority of them into cost-cutting mode reining in their IT spends. However, closer home, though, global developments have not, in anyway, dented investments in IT & ITeS infrastructure projects by private developers, across southern states of India. And given it’s iconic status as Silicon Valley of India, Bangalore, in particular, & Karnataka, in general, as ever, lead from the front.

Being the most proactive State, and most sought after IT destinations, Karnataka, and Bangalore, have bagged most number of IT & ITeS infrastructure project investments compared to their equally successfully striding southern peers.

According to Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) quarterly update, prepared by ICRA Management Consultancy Services Limited accessed by Deccan Herald, of the 204 IT & ITeS infrastructure projects in Southern India, Karnataka lead with total of 57 projects, followed by Andhra Pradesh with 46, Tamil Nadu & Pondicherry combine 88 and Kerala 13.

While among total 204 projects, 37 percent of these investments are under execution, 30 percent of projects have been completed and 28 percent under planning stage. In Karnataka, from among 57 projects, 16 are under execution, 26 in planning stage, 11 completed as of July 2009. Though investments run into several thousand crore, they have not been declared. What’s more heartening is the State’s plans to push projects into Tier-II cities are bearing results with few lined up in the districts of Mysore & Mandya as well, sources said.

Proposals in play
Those under execution are: Supreme Build Cap’s Rs 222 crore Global Tech Park at Deverabisanahalli. IBC Knowledge Park’s Rs 82.2 crore STP on Bannerghatta Road. Jaypee Group’s Rs 20 crore STP at Electronic City. The Rs 375 crore IT Pritech Park-II at Bellandur by Primal Projects. Bhoruka Group’s Rs 250 crore Bhoruka Tech Park at Whitefield. Upkar Software Facilities Software Development Centre on Hosur Road.

Fortune Builders & Developers STP. Harita Projects IT Park at Electronic City. Tata Group’s Project at Mahadevpura. Immaculate Holdings Immaculate Grands IT Park. Fortuna’s Tech Park at Electronic City. Kaushtubha Project’s IT Park at Devanam Plaza, Bangalore. Pallonji Group’s IT Park at S P Infocity, Mysore. Adarsh Prime Project’s IT Park in Bangalore. Ashtha Infrastructure’s IT Park at Electronic City and India Builders Corp’s Knowledge Park-Tower.

Those proposed are: Sri IT Park. Vaswani Group’s IT Park. Sunil Mantri’s Mantri Axis. Gulf Oil Corporation’s IT Park at Yelahanka. Harita Project’s, Salarpuria Project’s IT Park at Koorgalli. Nova Hamlet Ltd’s Software Park at Mysore. Abharana Infotech’s IT Park at Hebbagodi. SR Constructions IT Park at Mysore. Kalyani Developer’s at Koorgalli. Kruthi Computer Services’ STP at Mysore. Alliance Infrastructure’s STP, Pathak Constructions Pratham Tech Park at Mettagalli. Adarsh Prime Project’s Adarsh IT Park at Whitefield. Team 4ce Friendly Consortium’s IT Park at Mandya and Sita Lodge’s IT park at Bandapur.

New entrepreneurs shifting from IT-Related projects: TIE

Bhaskar Hazarika, New Delhi
Financial Chronicle
First generation entrepreneurs are now shifting the focus from IT development products to retail, media, education, healthcare and bio-technology. Out of every 10 upcoming entrepreneurs seeking seed funding for projects, six to seven are not associated with IT development or products.

Elaborating on this trend, Saurabh Srivastava, chairman emeritus of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Delhi said that entrepreneurship had matured in India and there was a paradigm shift from traditional IT development to other verticals. ’“Entrepreneurship is changing in India as we see a lot of ideas in the other business segments. Today, retail, biotech, clean tech, education and media are evolving fields”, he said.

TiE helps in funding entrepreneurs through initial investment and also guides them to get funding from venture capitals. “The first generation of entrepreneurs brought in IT-related products and service innovations to the table since the Indian IT industry offered a lot of scope for them. But today, entrepreneurs are diversifying into other business verticals,” Srivastava said.

With the global credit crunch there has been scarcity of seed funding in the US. However, India continues to be an optimistic destination for venture capitalists. Srivastava said the downturn had not impacted the availability of seed funding much. “Financing and entrepreneurs grow hand in hand. Usually, a slowdown is the best time for investing in entrepreneurs. Unlike earlier, today venture capitalists are looking at investing in other business verticals. Entrepreneurship is converting job seekers into job creators,” he added.

Indian scientist invents fastest disk encryption system

Kolkata
Mint
An Indian scientist has claimed to have developed the fastest internationally known method to encrypt hard disk of a computer so that data remains secure even from attack by hackers.

The new algorithm developed by Palash Sarkar, a professor at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata, is reportedly 30 to 40% faster than the previous ones.

From a practical point of view, the requirement is actually to achieve both speed and security. Otherwise, encryption and decryption may take so much time that softwares which run on computers become unacceptably slow, Sarkar said.

“And, in the current state of the art, this work provides the fastest known algorithm for disk encryption,” Sarkar claimed.

The results of the research will appear in October 2009 issue of the ‘IEEE Transactions on Information Theory’, one of the top research journals in the field of transmission, processing and utilization of information.

Asked how he claims his algorithm to be the ‘fastest’, he replied, “One has to see this in the context of the anonymous and strict review process of the journal ‘IEEE Transactions on Information Theory’.

The reviewers allowed this claim to stand because I could scientifically justify it in the paper. A hollow claim would have been struck down by the reviewers, he added.

The claim of speed improvement in the new scheme is based on hardware implementation carried out by a group of Mexico-based scientists led by Dr Debrup Chakraborty.

“The software implementation of the algorithm is expected to give more speedups compared to that of other methods,” Chakraborty said in an email interview.

Chakraborty and his colleagues have been working on several aspects of disk encryption since past few years at the Center for Advanced Studies and Research of the National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico.

The details of the new algorithm involve techniques of computer science, abstract algebra and discrete probability theory, Sarkar said.

Tech COS, VTU tie up to improve skills

Peerzada Abrar, Bangalore
The Economic Times (Bangalore edition)
While India produces a large number of engineering graduates every year, most transnationals find only 25% of them employable, says a Global Institute study. A recent study by PurpleLeap, an entry-level talent management firm paints an even grim picture — only 6% of the 10,000 students across 150 engineering colleges were found to be employable. To this end, firms like Intel, Bosch and Wipro are collaborating with technical universities like Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) to make these graduates improve their skill-sets.

“Robert Bosch received about a lakh job applications, of which 10,000 were called for an interview while only 1,000 of them were finally hired,” Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions (RBEI) MD Friedhelm Pickhard said. What RBEI, a leading provider of technology and services, has done is to sign a pact with VTU to set up a Bosch Technical Centre in their campus. “It is an effort to bring the industry and academia together. We are forming such partnerships not only with Bosch but with Wipro and Intel too. Similar initiatives are in pipeline with IBM and Australia’s Deakin University,” says Dr HP Kincha, vice-chancellor, VTU. “With Bosch, we will set up an R&D centre for automotive electronics. We want to create innovation centres,” he added.

The world’s largest chipmaker Intel will also set up a research centre in Mysore along with VTU, which will work on multi-core technologies. “A multi-core learning centre will be set up in 2010 in Mysore. Intel has already created one at MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore, last month”, said an Intel spokesperson.

Wipro, through its non-profit trust — Mission 10X, will be reaching out to 10,000 faculty members with innovative teaching methods across India to enhance the employability potential of graduating engineers, said Dr Selvan D, senior vice-president for talent transformation at Wipro.

Association for Indian origin IT professionals launched in US

Silicon Valley
The Economic Times
With an objective to bring Indian origin IT professionals at one platform and give them a common voice, an association of IT professionals has been launched here.

"ITPIO gives an opportunity to all IT professionals and other professionals as well to communicate with each other," Sri Chawla, CEO of US Microtech and a philanthropist in the Silicon Valley said in his inaugural address.

The first chapter of the Association of IT Professionals of Indian Origin (ITPO) was launched in the Silicon Valley on August 15 - India's Independence Day.

"IT professionals from India are well known and perceived for their skills, professionalism and success - yet they do not have an organisation representing their professional interest," Khanderao Kand, founder of ITPIO said.

"ITPIO is a great platform for everyone from entry level to C level with an objective to promote the professional leadership to make an Indian Imprint on the progress of world," Kand added.

Speaking on the difficult times being faced by IT industry, well known CEO and Entrepreneur Coach Dr Prasad Kaipa in his key note address said, "Turbulent times are the appropriate times for positive deviance, for stretching, risk taking and this will show up us as leaders."

Primarily focusing on fostering the leadership and personal development of IT professionals of Indian Origin, ITPIO has also initiated chapters in Denver, Washington, Seattle Hyderabad and Bangalore.

Indian companies aim for green offices

New Delhi
The Economic Times
With the environment and climate change becoming predominant concerns worldwide, Indian companies are contributing their mite by having building constructed on the principles of ecological balance and energy conservation.

Well-known companies like Wipro, ITC, Patni Computers, Spectral Services and many others have received permission to work on "green buildings" in industrial zones of the National Capital Region (NCR) like Noida and Gurgaon.

Green buildings consultancy company SGS Pvt India Ltd Senior Manager Avinash Kumar said there are about 40 buildings in the country that fall under the green category and at least 10-12 companies are in place that cater for such requirements currently.

"At present Chennai has the most number of green buildings in the company. Mumbai and Hyderabad too have buildings under this category. Wipro, ITC Centre in Gurgaon and Patni College Centre and Spectral Services Consultants Pvt Ltd in Noida are counted among green buildings in the NCR" Kumar said.

In addition to these, L&T Chennai, Hiranandani BG Building in Mumbai, ABN Amro Bank in Ahemedabad, Microsoft Building in Hyderabad, Ashok Leyland in Chennai also fall under this category.

Green building consultancy services company Environment Design Solution Director Tanmay Tathagat said green buildings are constructed in a manner that they make best use of natural light and the people working in that area feel in touch with nature.

Green buildings are constructed in a scientific way whereby water management, natural energy and use of local resources are emphasised.

Govt clears 10 fdi proposals worth Rs 1,123 crore

New Delhi
Business Standard The Asian Age Deccan Chronicle The Economic Times Deccan Herald
The government today cleared 10 foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals worth over Rs 1,123 crore, a major share of which is expected to be brought in by the Essel Group promoted direct-to-home service provider, Dish TV India.

On the recommendation of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, the government, however, deferred nine proposals -- that of Taneja Aerospace, Eads Deutchland GmbH and Larsen & Toubro's, Tecnotree Convergence, Devas Multimedia, Exensys Software Solutions, India Rizing Fund, Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu), Rish Private Ltd, and ByCell Telecommunication.

Three proposals, of Chennai-based Asha Micro Credit, Cholamandalam DBS Finance, and Cargil & Financial Services India, were rejected.

Dish TV India plans to issue convertible bonds to persons resident outside India to raise up to $150 million (about Rs 750 crore) for investments towards import of capital goods, overseas direct investment in joint ventures, or wholly owned subsidiaries, among others.

The company has the approval to set up a joint venture to produce telecommunication equipment and provide management and marketing of 'agrani' services in the area of satellite communications.

The approved foreign equity participation in the joint venture is 49 percent and the foreign collaborators include Afro-Asian Satellite Communication Ltd, Delgrada Ltd and Lazarus Investment Ltd.

L&T plans to form finance vertical

Suprotip Ghosh, Mumbai
Hindustan Times
Larsen & Toubro (L&T), India's largest construction company, is considering consolidation of its finance subsidiaries to form a finance vertical. The company's new general insurance business is expected to be a key part of the new vertical.

"A new finance vertical will emerge as one of the four verticals in the group, which will include most finance-related companies that are currently subsidiaries of Larsen & Toubro," said R Shankar Raman, executive vice president, finance, L&T.

The company is reorganising itself into four distinct verticals. These include the parent company, engineering, infotech and finance.

The finance vertical will consist of L&T Finance, L&T Infrastructure Finance and L&T General Insurance.

L&T General Insurance has appointed Joydeep Roy, the chief distribution officer of Tata AIG Life, as its chief executive. The company is not probably going to start operations before another six months, said YM Deosthalee, chief financial officer; L&T. Roy declined to comment.

Cold response to 'FLOOD IT'

Jitendra Dave, Ahmedabad
DNA
Contrary to its hyper expectations, the Gujarat Urban Co-Operative Banks Federation’s (GUCBF) information technology initiative - 'Flood IT Knowledge Revolution from KG to PG' - could unfortunately elicit a very lukewarm response.

Instead of the envisioned disbursement of loans for around one-lakh desktops and laptops, the GUCBF was able to disburse loans for only 25,000 desktops and laptops despite the extension in the period of the scheme.

However, the federation has termed the initiative a success as it has served its purpose of creating awareness about information technology in rural areas of the state.

The apex body of around 300 urban co-operative banks in Gujarat launched the information technology drive in February 2009. The GUCBF had launched the initiative with great pomp in Gandhinagar in presence of chief minister Narendra Modi.

It expected to disburse loans to around one lakh people under its scheme, which was valid for 100 days. The federation had to extend the scheme up to August 10, 2009 because of lack of response. Under this initiative, the federation provided laptop and desktop computers to the children of the members of urban co-operative banks, district co-operative banks and primary credit societies at reasonable rates. Besides, it also gave loans for up to 70% of the amount at 0% interest.

The federation had collaborated with HP, Acer and HCL to make 14 models of laptop and desktop computer available under this scheme.

Exports set to rebound in december: FICCI

Ronojoy Banerjee
Financial Chronicle
Despite markets in the West looking far from promising, exporters in India are seeing some signs of a revival. In a survey conducted by Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), majority of respondents said exports were expected to be in positive terrain by December this year.

Orders are finally tricking in, though not at the pace seen previously, said the survey released on Sunday.

The survey, conducted among 316 companies across sectors such as fast moving consumer goods, textiles, handicrafts, metal and metal products, pharmaceuticals and IT, found that year-on-year, the quantum of decline in exports had seen a dip. “There is expected to be an improvement but only in terms of the fall in exports getting smaller,” the survey said, adding that it could be another year before any “reasonable positive growth” is witnessed.

In lieu of this, exporters have sought extension of duty entitlement passbook scheme rates beyond December 31, 2009, simplification of the process under duty free import authorisation scheme, interest subvention extended to all exporting sectors, inclusion of more nations in the focus market scheme, exemption of service tax and temporary reintroduction of exemption under Section 80 HHC of the Income Tax Act, among others. The fast movement in exchange rate in the past six months is also creating problems for exporters. In a similar survey in January, 29 per cent exporters had cited this problem, but now their number has gone up to 61 per cent.

Bharti looks to sell undersea bandwidth

New Delhi
Bharti Airtel on Monday announced that the company now has the capability and network reach to sell bandwidth or connectivity on its undersea cables to global operators enabling the latter to carry their voice and data traffic across the world, a leap from its earlier practice of offering connectivity largely to and from India.

This means, a Deutsche Telekom or France Telecom in Europe can now buy bandwidth on Bharti’s undersea cables to carry its traffic to Australia or the US. Similarly, a Telstra in Australia can now use Bharti’s cables to carry its voice and data traffic to, say, Japan or Singapore. At present, only Tata Communications and Reliance Communications-owned Flag are the only Indian players that offer global connectivity across countries on their undersea networks. Bharti said it has invested over Rs 2,500 core over the past couple of years to enhance its undersea networks. Undersea cables carry voice and data traffic across the world.

According to Bharti Airtel’s president for enterprise services, David Nishball, the launch of the global wholesale service portfolio is a major step towards the company becoming a global network solutions provider. “From being a regional partner for foreign carriers, Bharti is now uniquely poised to serve global carriers to and from any part of the globe. Over the past few years, we have expanded our global network services portfolio in a manner that complements our investments in existing submarine routes to ensure flexible options for connectivity across all regions of the globe,” he said. Nishball also added that the telco’s undersea networks had a reach of 200,000 kms and could offer connectivity across 200 countries.

On the revenues front, Nishball said that from the second year of operations, the international segment would account for over 20% of the company’s enterprise business. As reported first by ET, Bharti has joined a slew of undersea global cable consortiums, such as Unity North, EIG, IMEWE, EASSy, all of which are currently being built, to enhance its presence in this space. In addition, Bharti’s global network consists of stakes in several other cable systems, such as SMW4, i2i, which is fully-owned, APCN2, c2c, JUCN, TGN, TAT14, Apollo and Hibernia.

Bharti had also inked a deal with Australia-Japan Cable (AJC) to interconnect their current and future networks at the Pacific Island of Guam. The deal will enable Bharti to carry voice and data for telcos in Singapore, the US West Coast and Australia. As per the deal, Bharti will link its assets on the upcoming Asia-America Gateway (AAG) cable with AJC, which connects Australia to Guam and Japan. The AAG, being built by a 17-member consortium, is the first submarine cable system linking Southeast Asia directly to the US, and when operational, it will connect 10 locations in eight Asian countries and the US West Coast. Bharti along with five international majors, including Google, is also involved in setting up a separate $300 million sub-sea cable system linking the US and Japan.

India inc resumes hiring drive amid recovery signals

New Delhi
The Economic Times
The Economic Times Financial Chronicle Mint The Statesman Business Standard The Financial Express The Times of India

In a major relief for jobseekers, India Inc's hiring activities are picking up once again as economic conditions are looking up considerably, experts say.

Most of the Indian companies, which had frozen hiring due to the downturn, have started to look at fresh recruitments now with indications of an economic recovery becoming visible across the world, according to HR experts.

"Hiring trends are picking up with companies opening up again for fresh recruitments ... the days of downturn seem to be over and an upswing has begun.

"The resume posting activity is picking up again as people are testing the waters for changing their jobs," International Management Institute (IMI) Director C S Venkata Ratnam said.

Global consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers Executive Director R Sankar said the hiring conditions were turning for the better even as a long way remains for companies to regain their previous year's levels.

"The job scene has improved but is still to reach the levels of euphoria we were accustomed to in earlier years. We don't see a 'flurry of resumes ' but cherry picking of key talent continues to happen," Sankar said.

"Much would depend on the pace of the economic recovery. The green shots are springing up but the poor monsoon is cause for concern," he added.

Venkata Ratnam also said that retail and realty sectors are the ones to pick up strongly in the coming months, while IT sector will continue to suffer as it is not driven by domestic demand.

"In any event, sectors such as FMCG, pharma, telecoms etc which have been relatively less affected by the slowdown will continue to hire, albeit cautiously," Sankar pointed out.

In June, corporate India's hiring activity had surged significantly with recruitment in banking and financial services sector increasing 22 percent in the month, according to a survey by a job portal.

"The economy has pulled out of the stagnancy in hiring. Although, there is an uptrend in hiring, this may be only indicative of replacement hiring," Info Edge National Head - Marketing and Communications Sumeet Singh said.

The job trends in Indian companies' is in line with their global peers and a recent survey by Deloitte revealed HR executives globally now have new concerns about building up of a 'resume tsunami' which may be ready to hit once the economy turns and employees begin to consider new opportunities.

"Once recovery begins to take hold, business executives and talent leaders can expect a 'resume tsunami' as voluntary turnover rises with leaders and workers with critical skills seeking new opportunities," Deloitte LLP Consulting Principal (Human Capital) Jeff Schwartz said.

B-School grads choose to go solo as jobs go missing

Peerzada Abrar, Bangalore, August 17, 2009
The Economic Times
With the wait for jobs getting longer, the number of B-school graduates turning to start-ups is also increasing. A first-year student at IIM Bangalore launched a start-up called NextGen this year, which deals in clean technology.

NextGen recently bagged clean technology projects from the ministry of renewable energy and Yes Bank and companies like Intel, Infosys, MindTree, and now boasts of presence in Singapore and Portugal.

“There is a lot of pressure on companies to go green and reduce the carbon footprint. We are now working on a biogas plant based on food wastes to produce fuel. IISc is helping us in this and we are setting up a pilot project in BITS Pilani and on the Intel campus,” said the 22-year-old student. “Although the primary objective is to make money, there is also the need to create sustainable sources of energy for rural areas.”

Eximus, an entrepreneurship summit held in IIM Bangalore, which focussed on start-ups this year, saw around 1,500 registrations. Some 300 IIM students applied for business plans and some 25 venture capitalists showed interest to participate. Close to 120 IIM students applied to get live projects from start-ups, said Sabyasachi Senapati, senior co-ordinator, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Cell, and an IIM-B student.

Start-ups like 8KMiles are willing to give live projects dealing in cost-effective and secure outsourcing of software done online to prospective entrepreneurs while Justbooks, which promotes e-books, is willing to award projects to understand the impact of digitisation of music and film industry and draw parallels to digitisation of books.

Chip off the new block

Sushila Ravindranath
The Financial Express
There is a quiet revolution-taking place in many of India’s states. Computerisation is slowly creeping in. Its pace can be much faster, but it is happening nevertheless. Which is why it was quite incredible when the Samajwadi party announced its election manifesto in April this year: it spoke of reducing the use of computers to generate more jobs! Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav also vowed to abolish ‘expensive education in English’. Sure enough, he backtracked very soon and claimed that he was not against computers or English. Remember even Laloo Prasad Yadav used to be sceptical about the benefits of information technology. He might have changed his mind later.

According to a new survey by TCS, 71% of students in Indian metropolitan areas say they use personal computers. And 66% of students in Bangalore say they are active on blogging and social networking sites, compared with 39% nationally. The survey of nearly 14,000 kids studying in English-medium schools in 12 major cities in India shows schoolchildren have embraced technology and the Internet, with Google and Wikipedia overtaking the library as the most trusted source of information. Some 63% of children surveyed said they spent more than an hour each day on the Internet; 41% of schoolchildren surveyed chose Google as a source of information, while 46% said they use online sources to access news. The politicians who belong to the 20th century will realise sooner than later that young people in semi-urban places and villages are no different from their city-bred counterparts.

In fact the countryside is embracing computerisation with great fervour. Says PWC Davidar, secretary, Information Technology in Tamil Nadu: “We are working on applications which will benefit the common man… We need a proper base for e-governance applications. We have a fully functioning state data centre of our own. With the central government releasing more funds for e-governance, we can function effectively for many more years. We have two mainframes in place. The Tamil Nadu statewide area network (TNSWAN) is one among the core e-government infrastructures to create government to government and government to citizen initiatives.”

With the arrival of worldwide web (which is only 20 years old), many governments started deploying IT in the nineties. This powerful tool suddenly made governments think about good governance. IT-enabled governance would make efficiency, transparency, accountability and citizen-orientation possible. Take the case of Tamil Nadu’s TNSWAN network, which has two-tier architecture. Tier 1 is from state to district level and Tier2 is from district headquarters to the revenue division. TNSWAN interconnects the state headquarters with district headquarters and each district headquarter with block headquarters using the 2Mbps free bandwidth availed from public private communication providers. The total number of points of presence of the network is 708. Very soon the state government is planning to launch tools of e-governance in several areas through TNSWAN. This will enable people to access information on land records (an area in which Tamil Nadu has lagged behind), transport facilities, encumbrance certificates, municipal services and food and civil supplies from any part of the state.

The state is launching its programme in five handpicked e-districts. “Once we figure out what all services can be rolled out, we will go to all the 30 districts,” says Davidar. The IT department has identified 124 services that will have maximum impact on the people, and has picked 62 out of them. “There are two stages, AS IS and TO BE. The AS IS stage has been completed. We are developing applications for revenue, OBC, SC and social welfare departments. We have big plans for agriculture. We want to give information on fertiliser application, new equipment, sudden pest attacks, weather forecasts and so on. We have e-teams in each place. The ownership is with each department,” says Davidar. A team of committed bureaucrats (yes, they do exist) from various departments is working on several initiatives and the IT minister Dr Poongothai is fully supportive and wants to speed things up. “In four months hopefully you will see the results of our work,” says Davidar.

Nokia's kallasvuo heads panel for ET awards for corporate excellence 2009

Mumbai
The Economic Times
Nokia folklore has it that in the early 1990s, when the Finnish mobile phone giant’s board was deliberating whether to set up operations in India or China, the then CFO of Nokia Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo insisted that it was not an either-or decision—Nokia needed both markets.

So the company set up operations in India in 1995. And the rest, as they say, is history. Today, Nokia boasts of a Rs 24,200-crore business in India with 70 percent-plus marketshare in mobile handsets. And on August 20, the 56-year-old Finn will have to take similar decisive calls.

As the chairman of the jury for the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence, he will head an eight-member grand jury that will change the lives of a chosen few in India Inc—doing no less than inducting them into India Inc’s Hall of Fame.

Kallasvuo, now president and CEO of the E51.05-billion Nokia is looking forward to the challenge. “It’s an honour. It’s also a great opportunity to meet some of the architects of the new Indian business powerhouses,” he says. “It’s a big event for me personally. India is not an emerging economy now but it’s in full bloom—taking into account the significance, the size, the importance of the nation.”

Over the years, the jury has been chaired by a range of diverse personalities - from Infosys’ NR Narayana Murthy, to HDFC’s Deepak Parekh, to Pepsico’s Indra Nooyi and ArcelorMittal’s LN Mittal. They brought their individual styles to the collective decision-making process: some were consensus builders, some wanted time-bound quick decisions, some allowed long debates and even agreed to disagree with the members. Kallasvuo sees himself as a consensus builder. “Nokia’s culture is very collaborative and equitable. But I guess, it’s also about finding the right balance,” he says.

Tata’s Corus acquisition, HCL’s Axon buy, the acquisition of LandRover and Jaguar, all of these reflect India’s growing role in the comity of nations,” he expands. The winners of The Economic Times Awards, like Infosys, Tata Steel, Bharti, HDFC Bank, Ranbaxy Laboratories and TCS have helped the India story go further and also done their bit in nation-building. Kallasvuo’s jury will take it a step further.

The ET Awards are presented by Raymond in association with Trident, Nariman Point, Mumbai and the television partners are ET NOW and Times NOW.

IT companies may take time for non-linear growth

Shivani Shinde, Mumbai
Business Standard
Indian information technology services providers may have seen a dip in net hiring this financial year. However, the drop is more due to the slowdown in the business environment rather than a shift towards non-linear growth. Experts believe it will take another three to five years for Indian IT firms to move to a non-linear business model.

Non-linear growth does not measure improvement on the basis of headcount growth, which most stock market analysts do. Instead, organisations measure growth by the number of value-added services they offer to customers, by introducing non-linear or non-headcount related services like platform-based solutions or invest in creating intellectual property (IP) rather than focus on just pure application development and maintenance (ADM) work.

Sudin Apte, senior analyst, Forrester, believes the move towards non-linear business growth was initiated by top IT firms even before the slowdown began. “Currently, just about 3 to 4 percent of business that Indian IT firms get are on non-linear pricing. It will take at least three to five years for Indian IT firms to get on to the non-linear business model,” added Apte. He said a change in client mindset is also important.

Agrees Sidharth Pai of TPI: “Achieving non-linear growth is a long process. This reduction in headcount is a direct impact of the softness in the market. on subdued price realisationOf course, outcome-based pricing and platform-based service offerings are some of the components of non-linear growth. But these are still a small part of the revenue.”

A recent Edelweiss Securities’ report says the correlation between headcount growth and revenue is beginning to break, as firms deploy a shared services model. “Shared services means using fungible resources across multiple projects simultaneously. This requires non-intrusive, yet collaborative, infrastructure to be put in place along with client approvals. As companies use more shared services in their delivery, we could see realisations hold up despite pressures on rack/coupon rates with customers,” said Viju George in his report.

Global players like IBM or Accenture are much ahead of Indian IT players on offering non-linear services. However, analysts feel a comparison is not fair. “The IBM and Accentures of the world also have other business, a different asset that allows them to bundle their services offering,” opined Pai. Besides, says Apte, a large chunk of the work the MNCs do is onsite. “The consulting business of all these firms are big,” he said.

Swine flu fear spreads across the Indian IT Industry

Pradeesh Chandran & N V Vijayakumar, Bangalore
Deccan Herald
If it be the global recession that impacted IT sector for the last two years, it is all going to be gripped by an impending outbreak of swine flu.

While many IT companies in the country have imposed travel restriction on their employees, few others are circulating information on swine flu internally to sensitise employees. Few companies also embarked upon cooling off period for those who returned from overseas stint. According to TCS sources, the company started mailing employees to take precautionary measures in the event of singe or large outbreak of the disease. Even though the outbreak of the disease hasn’t affected its overseas operation, TCS Mexican centre had to be closed for five days because of local government directive.

Few TCS employees said the circular cautions them to restrict hugging and even unwanted spitting. TCS also tied up with few hospitals for getting them checked. Infosys has already started educating employees by sending health bulletins for taking necessary precautions. Medical teams at the company’s various development centres are on high alert and in constant touch with public authorities to ensure safety of employees and continuity of operations. Infosys also reduced all inbound and outbound travel to Pune Development Centre and limited it to essential business travel. It has 20,000 strong workforce at the Pune centre.

Wipro Chief Information Officer Laxman Badiga said “in addition to existing pandemic response plan, we have intensified our efforts at employee health and safety measures.

We are communicating with our employees to exercise extreme caution and avoid unnecessary travel.”

Symphony Services Corporation has told its employees who have travelled to the UK, Mexico, the US and parts of Europe recently, to go through a cooling off period. Executive Vice-President & Chief People Officer C Mahalingam said the cooling off period entails working from home for four-five days and getting back to office after employees show no signs of having contracted the disease. “Our wellness partners are doing all necessary checks and issuing communication on the disease to all staff,” he added.

Mask purchasing spree
Cognizant, which has over 7,500 employees in Pune, has issued an advisory to their associates asking them to undertake only essential travel and defer all other types of travel to locations worldwide affected by swine flu.

Few of MNC companies working in the sector have also started purchasing spree of masks and other gadgets to counter the spread of swine flu at their centres in the country. In another development, Nasscom has also postponed its engineering services outsourcing summit scheduled to be held in Pune on August 19 to November 18.

IT Companies' answer to SWINE FLU

The Times of India
The swine flu fear has reached India Inc too. The steady rise in the cases of flu has made Business India take preventive steps, though not many are talking about widespread shutdown in the face of a pandemic. There are doctors visiting offices, restrictions on travel, event cancellations, office advice of flu precautions and stay-home advisories to workers returning from flu-hit areas as companies look to keep the virus from impacting their businesses.

Companies are also checking their disaster recovery and business continuity plans, just in case things go out of hands. Here's looking into what IT companies are doing to contain flu.

Cooling off period

Many IT companies across the country have asked their `recently travelled' employees to go through a mandatory Cooling Off period of four to five days. During this Cooling Off period employees are asked to work from home and get back to office after mandatory four-five days only in case they show no signs of having contracted the disease.

Employees who have recently travelled to US, Mexico, UK and some parts of Europe have to go through this Cooling period. Bangalore-based IT company Wipro has introduced a 4-days Cooling period for its employees.

Travel advisory

Most IT companies have issued an advisory to their employees. Infosys Technologies has restricted travel among its nine development centres across the India. Perot Systems has temporarily banned travel between its Chennai and Coimbatore offices. All communication is being done through videoconferencing.

"Employees returning from swine flu-hit areas have to go through a compulsory medical check. Also, each of our development centers has a doctor and any employee can go for a swine flu check anytime," says an Infosys spokeswoman. The company has also asked its employees who recently travelled to US to get themselves examined before joining office. Infosys has about 20,000 employees at its Pune centre.

Most technology companies have also issued an advisory to their employees to avoid travelling to Mumbai and Pune unless extremely urgent.

Masks compulsory

US-based Perot Systems has reportedly made it compulsory for every individual to wear a mask inside the company campus. The company has one lakh masks in stock. It is also said to be procuring a temperature scanner as a precautionary measure.

Many other IT companies too are said to be in the process of procuring masks for their employees. Fumigation of campuses too is being done in most IT companies.

No handshakes please!

India's largest IT company TCS has asked employees to avoid shaking hands and to wash hands frequently through an advisory. It is also counselling staff to avoid panic.

Chief HR officer of Tata Tele Services (TTSL), CN Nagakumar, has sent out a health advisory "to enable the employees to understand, appreciate and take preventive and curative measures to effectively handle any eventuality of H1N1 currently spreading in the country"

The company has also ensured a round-the-clock doctor. TTSL officials who will visit Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh on work are even contemplating wearing masks on the flight.

Paid leave

BPO company Syntel Inc has reportedly asked all its employees returning from high-risk countries such as the US and Mexico to compulsorily go on a two-day paid leave. The employees have been asked to go for a checkup from a company doctor.

Several IT companies like TCS and CapGemini have reportedly given their employees in Mumbai and Pune the option to work from home.

The country's largest software exporter TCS which also has considerable presence in Pune has issued detailed internal mails with relevant information about the pandemic and known safeguards against it.

NASSCOM summit postponed

Nasscom has postponed its two-day global engineering summit in Pune from August to November. About 300 people from across India and outside were expected to attend the summit.

“It is not about Pune but the fact that attendees will be coming from different places that could present a danger,” said a Nasscom official, who did not wish to be named.

Doctor on call

Most of the IT companies have made doctors available on call. Some IT offices have also set up a central control room. US-based Congnizant, which has its second largest global delivery center in Pune employing 7,500, has doctor visiting each floor of its office to conduct sessions on proactive precautions.

Many companies have also set up a toll free number to support employees and their families.

IT, BPO firms postpone events

Pune
The Indian Express
With the city witnessing five swine flu fatalities, the IT-BPO sectors too are taking no chances and cancelling their events.

NASSCOM has postponed its two-day global engineering summit, which was to be held in the city on August 18 and 19. Around 300 people from across the country and abroad`d were expected to attend the summit. According to a press note from NASSCOM, the event is being rescheduled following the government decision to shut down schools, colleges, multiplexes and so on. It will now be held in November, the note said.

Many companies have issued directives and those who have even the slightest fever and cough symptoms have been asked to work from home, while others are spreading awareness among employees about swine flu through office email. An IBM employee said FAQs on swine flu and updates on preventive measures are being given to personnel.