Re: Outsourcing - Most Popular Destination
did anyone notice a trend? used to be that US companies were always announcing outsourcing to banglore. now it seems to be brit and aussie companies! wonder what's going on
Re: Outsourcing - Most Popular Destination
Looks like Pune, Maharashtra will be the next Bangalore…
Outsourcing Trends for 2007
India will remain on top, but other countries and cities will show up on the radar.
January 5, 2007
By Kalpana Shah
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=20589&hed=Outsourcing+Trends+for+2007
Business transformation will drive global companies to seek out a greater degree of technology outsourcing in the year ahead, according to two consulting firms.
neoIT, a San Mateo, California-based consulting firm specializing in services globalization, released a research note Friday predicting several trends that will dominate the outsourcing world in 2007.
Several of neoIT’s predictions echoed those of Tholons, a Washington, D.C.-based investment, advisory, and management firm, which released its forecasts last month.
Both firms predict that M&A activity will increase this year, with outsourcing services companies buying consulting firms or those firms that have local knowledge in the countries where their customers reside.
Similarly, companies from developed countries will buy firms in countries like India, the Philippines, and Russia to gain access to lower-cost talent.
Cities such as Prague, in the Czech Republic; Halifax, Canada; Budapest, Hungary; Warsaw, Poland; Pune, India; and Bucharest, Romania have already become centers for outsourcing, but they are becoming more expensive and less differentiated.
As a result, other cities such as Bratislava, Slovakia; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Kolkata, India; Xi’an, China; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Krakow, Poland; Colombo, Sri Lanka; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Sofia, Bulgaria are on their way to becoming centers of outsourcing in 2007, according to the study from Tholons.
neoIT, however, predicts that top cities such as Bangalore, New Delhi, and Chennai—all in India—will continue to attract new companies in 2007 despite rising costs.
Cities of Excellence
India will remain the top destination for IT services, but buyers will look for cities of excellence in other countries where they can leverage employee skills.
Tholons strongly feels that the year 2007 will be that of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which will play a significant role in the services globalization arena.
Anticipating the next wave, private equity investors will invest up to $5 billion in the Indian market to fund the expansion plans of business process outsourcing (BPO) and knowledge process outsourcing firms, predicted CEO Avinash Vashistha.
While not mentioning SMEs, neoIT thinks existing BPO firms will scale up the value chain by providing a layer of analytics on top of the work they already do, such as managing payroll and other human resources functions.
Both firms’ reports refer to the coming wave of outsourcing contract renewals. Tholons predicts that many large contracts will be carved into several pieces, with buyers opting for the best-of-breed approach in selecting service providers.
Countries such as the Philippines will see increased BPO activity while the high-tech Russian outsourcing industry will grow 40 percent next year. A country like Sri Lanka, offering cost-effective financial services, will see huge traction from buyers, according to the Tholons study.
The neoIT research brief also predicts that billing rates by top suppliers such as Accenture, IBM, Wipro, and Infosys will increase by 2 to 3 percent due to the growing demand for skilled resources, a rise in wages, and increased overhead incurred in maintaining quality or ensuring tight security.
Sleepy city in India goes boom - Oxford of the East
City needs to invest on infrastructure.
Sleepy city in India goes boom
By Kim Barker
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published November 26, 2006
PUNE, India – Once a slow backwater known as Pensioners’ Paradise, this small Indian city is now bursting at the seams. It is at the forefront of India’s economic boom, a microcosm of both the country’s incredible growth and its struggles to overcome ramshackle roads and baffling bureaucracy.
At the same time, Pune seems stuck between old India and new India: More people here use computers than in any other city in the country, and it hopes to be India’s first city with high-speed wireless Internet service for all. Yet Pune has no road rules, no taxi service, only one airport runway and signs in sleek corporate buildings that show people how to use Western toilets.
“Pune was once a sleepy, sloppy city with no growth,” said Darius Buhariwalla, general manager of the Hotel Sagar Plaza, where rooms are guaranteed only by booking a month in advance. “Now, every day there’s such a lot of change going on, that we ourselves don’t know what’s going to happen next. But we do know one thing–people are just not willing to say `stop.'”
In its sheer numbers, the growth of Pune is staggering.
The city is spilling over its limits, with a population that grew from 2.54 million in 2001 to an estimated 3.19 million this year. Every day, government officials say, people register more than 400 new vehicles in Pune. About 4,000 people fly in and out daily, compared with a year ago, when only 1,800 people did.
Land prices have shot up, doubling in certain neighborhoods in the past two years. The skyline is a series of construction sites, where more than 40 million square feet of building space is being developed this year, the equivalent of the space in about nine Sears Towers, according to government figures.
Twenty shopping malls are now being built. And giant billboards advertise new housing developments such as “Poshville.” One reads: “1 km from here you will realise what exclusive means.”
`Oxford of the East’
Fueled by an influx of information-technology companies with gleaming new buildings and the promise of biotechnology, Pune now has the highest per capita income in India, about $1,030 per year. With 126 small colleges, each teaching an average of 150 students, the city is described in India as the Oxford of the East, churning out thousands of information-technology graduates.
The city, near India’s west coast, has developed so explosively for a combination of reasons. It’s close to the major business hub of Mumbai while offering a milder climate and a qualified labor pool to fill new jobs. Unlike congested larger cities, Pune has had room and inexpensive land for companies to grow.
Government incentives helped build Pune as a manufacturing hub in the 1960s and then as an information-technology hub in the 1990s. Pune, along with the central city of Hyderabad, was also promoted heavily as an alternative to overcrowded Bangalore for information-technology companies.
But at certain points, Pune’s identity problem is all too evident.
At the Best Western Pride Hotel, under serious, sleep-disrupting renovation, clerks make the mistake of sending guests to their rooms with electronic key cards although the rooms can be opened only with actual keys.
And some instruction is needed about the new Western toilets for residents more accustomed to traditional Indian ones. “Please do not use it if you are not aware of its utility,” a sign says above the Western toilet at Persistent Systems, a software development company.
“The way I would describe [Pune] is a village turning into a bigger village, turning into kind of a town, and wanting to be a city,” said Girish Wardadkar, the president and executive director of KPIT Cummins Infosystems Limited, a consulting and information technology company.
If Pune does not make improvements, it runs the risk of turning into Bangalore, the country’s original information-technology darling, where traffic and infrastructure snarls have forced some companies to flee.
Hotels are strapped. With an average occupancy rate of 84 percent between April and June, Pune had the highest occupancy rate in India, according to industry figures.
There are only 1,100 decent hotel rooms in the city, said Hotel Sagar Plaza’s Buhariwalla, also the treasurer of Pune’s hotel association. By 2012, there will be 4,500 rooms, if all the planned construction happens. At least 13,000 new hotel employees will be needed. “I don’t know where they’re going to come from,” Buhariwalla said.
Until then, the city’s hotels are charging what they can. The nicest ones can pull in $200 to $500 a night, and they’re usually full. Amritaksha Chatterjee, the front office manager for Le Meridien, one of Pune’s two nicest hotels, said he was shocked by one run-down hotel that was charging up to $150 a night.
“Forget it, we won’t talk about such rooms,” he said.
The Pune Airport, one of the only ones in India shared between the public and the Indian air force, has only one runway, which served about 10 passenger flights a day four years ago and now juggles more than 30. The airport is being renovated, but it’s unlikely the government will be able to find land nearby for another runway. A second airport may have to be built.
Traffic on the city’s narrow roads is occasionally at a standstill. Hand-painted trucks with “Horn OK Please” painted on rear bumpers play chicken on crowded roads with new SUVs. Chaos rules. On a Wednesday evening at 7:30, driving 1 mile took 40 minutes.
Pune Municipal Commissioner Nitin Kareer said traffic is the worst problem. Three years ago, the city spent almost $11 million to build and repair roads. This year, it will spend five times as much, Kareer said.
Huge bureaucracy
Change here, as in much of India, often happens in spite of government, not because of it.
That’s not necessarily because officials lack vision. Kareer, the area’s top official, is well-regarded in the business community. Instead, this is largely because of the huge Indian bureaucracy and the glacial pace it takes to accomplish anything.
For instance, in October, just when the city’s wireless project was about to start, the central government announced new rules for going wireless. But these regulations have not yet been approved. Meanwhile, the project waits.
Private companies paid for the expressway between Mumbai and Pune in 2000. After the increasing demand on Pune’s power system, leading to power cuts of five hours a day, 20 top companies agreed last summer to generate their power for six to eight hours a day, lowering the demand on city power.
“Anything here that is private is among the best in the world,” said Kerman Kasad, the head of corporate communications for Symantec Corp. in Pune. “But whatever the government tries to do is among the worst in the world. … The moment you talk about government, the first thing that comes to mind is run away.”
Re: Sleepy city in India goes boom - Oxford of the East
if there are no roads what's the point buying cars?
Re: Sleepy city in India goes boom - Oxford of the East
wat is so great about oxford?
Re: Sleepy city in India goes boom - Oxford of the East
they probably mean bhai-garis
Re: Will India destroy the United States?
Re: Will India destroy the United States?
what a jacque-arse(R)(TM)
this guy should write bollywood scripts :D
Re: Sleepy city in India goes boom - Oxford of the East
What a question…
Pubs…and lots of them!
Re: Will India destroy the United States?
Durust farmaya aapne.
Re: Will India destroy the United States?
Are you serious denada?
Re: Will India destroy the United States?
funny :D .
why dont we try and make a movie on it.denada will be the hero(role of praveen).
Re: India’s Bleak future - Employment crisis leading to social breakdown
India will surpass UK in decade and the US by 2050-Goldman Sachs
Research from Goldman Sachs suggests India will overtake Britain’s economy within a decade.
The investment bank forecasts that India will surpass the US by 2050, making it the world’s second-largest economy after China.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/investing-and-markets/article.html?in_article_id=416703&in_page_id=3
Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered bank said: ‘The lesson for economies like the UK is to become global and diversify. We should recognise the challenge and respond to it.’
Lyons added: ‘The fact that the Chancellor finally visited India last week is an indication that policy makers are recognising this.’
Re: India will surpass UK in decade and the US by 2050-Goldman Sachs
Yes and there are others who will continue to dissipate their energy in religion based headcounts.
Re: India's Bleak future - Employment crisis leading to social breakdown
Positive signs in India...Retrial of earlier released convicts and sentenced.
An MP gets life term for a murder. Proactive media which cannot be strangled.
Re: Will India destroy the United States?
Should this thread not be transferred to the Jokes Forum or Shor Sharaba? :)
Re: Will India destroy the United States?
Kion yaar, kion kabaab mein hadi bantay ho! let kids play and have fun.
The Rise of Bangalore Tigers
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6293291.stm
For those who see Bangalaore as a ‘troubled part’ of India.
Re: Is India's outsourcing honeymoon over?
There are numerous benefits to outsourcing operations and tasks to companies and suppliers based in India, especially as it could help to boost growth and reduce overall costs.
Outsourcing can be used in a variety of ways by companies within a whole range of industries and sectors. It can be one of the most productive ways of lowering operating costs, reducing IT bills and, most importantly, meeting customers' needs. In recent years, the growth of outsourcing to India has increased rapidly as many leading companies take advantage of improvements in global communication technology by relocating back-office tasks such as payroll and data entry as well as purchasing and billing.
It is estimated that up to two-thirds of Fortune 500 firms currently outsource some part of their operations overseas and that outsourcing levels are expected to increase rapidly as companies strive to improve performance and increase efficiency levels, especially as the global competitive marketplace continues to develop. In many cases, firms have quickly realised that outsourcing can lead to the development of successful competitive strategies.
Changes in IT provision mean that onshoring is no longer the only option for many firms, especially as it can prove costly to rely on local labour forces. Instead, opting to outsource work to India can lead to substantial reductions as it can often remove the need for expensive software development programmes and can help to considerably reduce labour costs - which are often one of the most expensive overheads for a small but successful business. Increasingly start-up businesses are opting to outsource areas of their operations from day one due to the potential savings and reduction in development costs as well as enabling capital to be used more productively.
Opting to outsource routine operations overseas can also enable firms to focus on core competencies and enables better development of products and services - instead of having to oversee and supervise mundane tasks, executives are able to concentrate on expansion, customers' needs and long-term growth plans. Establishing fixed costs for many outsourced business practices also means that companies are better placed to anticipate future costs and set realistic budgets, which is essential in ensuring a profitable business.
Outsourcing to India can also play a key role in improving international economics by providing more employment opportunities as well as encouraging wage increases, funding local infrastructure improvement programmes and boosting living standards in the region.