Source:http://www.moneycontrol.com

Sitel, a global leader in business process outsourcing (BPO) with revenues of $1.8 billion today announced that its Bangalore based BPO center which was originally a JV with ITC Infotech will be rebranded as Sitel India. By reaffirming its strength and brand presence in India, Sitel is positioning itself as one of the largest BPO’s globally by highlighting its footprint in India.

India plays a very important part in Sitel’s growth strategy as there has been consistent delivery and excellent customer service with high returns on investment for all its clients by way of its highly talented and motivated workforce.

Safir Adeni, Managing Director and CEO of Sitel India, explains “We are very excited to integrate the Bangalore BPO center with the larger Sitel India family. This expanded footprint and capability would further enhance our value proposition to our global clients while also helping us leverage the Sitel brand in the local region. This is a mutually beneficial and complimentary integration”

Sitel will gain in several ways like attracting the right talent into the organization, retention of employees who will now be a part of a single large global brand, offer world-class options spread across 5 locations in India and more importantly a single entity with a large geographic distribution and communications network which offers great flexibility and choice for it’s clients’ customer care needs.

The focus of Sitel’s business strategy is enabling its over 450 customers globally with the expertise of additional service offerings, providing ability to expand and/or centralize customer care initiatives. Services provided will include - customer service, technical support, sales and saves, outbound sales, acquisition, collections, professional services, back office processing and transaction processing.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

BANGALORE: Senior executives at Satyam Computer Services are working overtime to ensure that top customers do not jump ship to rival tech firms,as the company tries to counter increased risks of customer defections amid concerns over corporate governance issues and a potential change in management.

Corporate governance at India’s fourth biggest software company firm came under sharp focus last month after Satyam announced and later withdrew plans to acquire two firms run by founder Ramalinga Raju’s family for $1.6 billion. The decision was slammed by investors and has led to a major upheaval in the company’s board with four independent directors standing down.

Some analysts have raised questions about the company’s commitment to software and industry experts say outsourcing contracts worth anywhere between $350 million and $500 million are up for renewal by Satyam customers this year.

“We are explaining to customers that what is in the realm of investors is different from the business side, where people and process remain unchanged,” said a top Satyam official who requested anonymity. “We are telling them that things at the board level will settle down soon, hopefully by next week.”

Satyam’s board is meeting on January 10 to discuss a new structure, apart from considering other strategic options to enhance shareholder value and address issues arising from a dilution of the promoter’s stake.

Industry research firms say several Satyam rivals are seeing new business opportunities
during the Satyam crisis. “Peers like TCS, Infosys, and Cognizant are gearing up to take advantage of Satyam’s misstep . Shared accounts will use this to take share and consolidate spending,” Forrester analysts Stephanie Moore, Sudin Apte, and John C McCarthy said in a report. Concerns have also been raised in some quarters whether the crisis that has enveloped the company could see key employees quit Satyam.

“People like us who are involved with the delivery side of the business are being asked questions about whether we are leaving Satyam,” admitted another Satyam official who manages project delivery for Satyam’s key customers, also requesting anonymity. “We have told them that there is no need to worry about contracts and that we are here to stay,” he added.

In order to ensure that customers, especially those planning to renew the contracts this year, do not walk away and outsource projects to a rival company, Satyam is stressing its project delivery credentials. With over half of its revenues coming from SAP-based enterprise services, Satyam has been serving companies such as Caterpillar deploy and manage their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

Top company executives are exploring meetings with key decision-makers at customers as part of a ‘meet and greet’ campaign . “We are making sure that customers are not going to other vendors by communicating more frequently with them, apart from seeking more one-to-one meetings,” the second Satyam official added.

Customers such as Applied Materials—which awarded a $200 million five-year contract last year to Satyam for managing the semiconductor firm’s software application and maintenance work—have expressed concerns over the recent events. “Applied Materials has approached Satyam for reworking the outsourcing agreement,” said a person familiar with the developments. While, the company is not exploring any immediate termination of the contract, an overall restructuring of the agreement is being worked out, the person added.

Satyam officials however, maintained that Applied Materials continues to be a satisfied customer despite developments over past few weeks. “We recently celebrated seven years of engagement with Applied Materials, and they have not indicated any change in our relationship,” said one of the three Satyam officials ET spoke with last week.

The Council has given Satyam a similar award, the Golden Peacock national award for excellence in corporate governance, in 2002 as well

Hyderabad: AUK-based organization that bestowed Satyam Computer Services Ltd its highest honour—the 2008 Golden Peacock Global Award for Excellence in corporate governance—in September, plans to reconsider the decision after serious questions over lack of governance at India’s fourth largest technology outsourcing company.

If its board concludes the award was undeserving, given recent questions about Satyam management’s attempts to use company money to buy two firms owned by the family of Satyam chairman B. Ramalinga Raju, the UK-based World Council for Corporate Governance says it may ask Satyam to stop using the award in its branding and publicity.

“What has come out in this case, as indeed in several high profile cases of malfeasance reported recently, is perhaps the ineffectiveness of the board despite its being constituted by men of such eminence,” said Manoj K. Raut, director general of the India office of Golden Peacock Award Secretariat. “The board and the jury will be meeting shortly to consider what further steps can be taken to rectify the situation and prevent recurrence.”

If the board, which is scheduled to meet in two weeks, concludes that its decision to give the award to Satyam was a mistake, the company would be asked to stop using the Golden Peacock logo or refer to the award for any purpose, Raut told Mint.

The Council has given Satyam a similar award, the Golden Peacock national award for excellence in corporate governance, in 2002 as well.

As per Council rules, the award logo and references can be used by a recipient for up to three years in branding and publicity.

A public review by the Council is another humiliating turn of events for Satyam and Raju, who, as recently as Wednesday, touted the Golden Peacock award in a letter to Satyam employees as proof of the “effectiveness” of Satyam’s corporate governance practices.

Satyam’s management has been caught under a governance spotlight after the management led by Raju got unanimous board approval to spend $1.6 billion (Rs7,792 crore today) of Satyam’s money to “diversify” by acquiring two infrastructure companies—Maytas Infra Ltd and Maytas Properties Ltd, both promoted by Raju’s sons.

An investor revolt forced Satyam to abandon the 16 December deals within 12 hours and amid continued questions about valuation, which Satyam management has stonewalled, and other governance issues, four directors, including highly regarded independent board members, have now resigned from Satyam’s board.

At the heart of the continued controversy is how a large related-party transaction into unrelated and troubled business areas, such as real estate, was pushed through by a management that later disclosed that its already small, 8.6% stake in Satyam had fallen even more as lenders who were pledged the promoters shares for loans started selling them in the open market.

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Source:http://www.indiadaily.com

The Call center, body shopping, IT cyber slave trades have started collapsing. As the American and European economies collapse into deepest depression ever, Indian outsourcing industry and the so-called India Inc. is collapsing at a much faster rate.

The toll is showing up in the fast accelerating and widening Indian trade deficit. India’s exports fell by 9.9 per cent in November 2008 under the impact of declining consumer demand in the U.S. and other major global markets, with negative growth for the second month running and widening monthly trade deficit by over $10 billion.

The trade deficit and balance of payments are both deteriorating at a fast rate. Export contracted by more than 12 per cent in October showing negative trend for the first time in the last five years.

The biggest casualty is the outsourcing sector creating massive unemployment among the educated elite middle class Indians.

Manufacturing sectors like leather, textile, gems and jewellery have also been hit hard because of demand slump in the U.S. and Europe.

Source:http://infotech.indiatimes.com

CHENNAI: After neutralising their mother-tongue accent and mastering the American drawl, Indian geeks are busy learning Japan’s Kanji, Katakana
and Hiragana symbols.

Reason: The recession is eating into the volume of outsourced IT work from the US; and after the US, Japan is an important market from the IT perspective, more so during the current period.

Take the case of Suman Reddy Ragidi, a business analyst of Cognizant. Japanese language training has enabled her to converse with clients both in formal as well as informal situations.

“The training has also made it easier for me to understand all project documentation written in Japanese,’’ says Reddy Ragidi. On its part, Cognizant runs foreign language training in its offices and its mandatory for employees to enroll in such language courses.

“Language is an important aspect of culture and such training is helpful in everyday communication. Importantly, employees are able to articulate their viewpoints to clients,’’ says K Venkataraman, director of Cognizant.

The Japanese IT services market is valued at $108 billion, according to a recent survey by Nasscom and Pricewaterhouse-Coopers. India has bagged only 13 per cent of this offshoring pie.Moreover, demand for software is primarily driven by the BFSI (banking, financial, services and insurance) and manufacturing companies which consume 42 per cent of the total IT services.

Another Chennai-based IT player Infoview Technologies, whose business comes fully from Japanese majors, is making sure its employees know Japanese symbols by heart. Around three-fourth of the company’s employees have learnt the language and the top management team which accounts for 10 per cent of the workforce has reached the ‘near native level’ in terms of mastering the language.