Indian Shares

Indian software giant Infosys is reporting a 52.4% risein quarterly profits and 47% increase in revenue, on the back of strong outsourcing orders from Western firms. JC Penny recently outsourced to InfoSys as did over 40 more companies this quarter.

The demand for skilled IT professionals in India is so high that companies are starting to find it hard to find suitable recruits. Infact some India companies (such as Intel) are setting up programmes to attract Indian's working abroad back to India. Software industry body Nasscom has warned that India faces a shortfall of half a million skilled workers by 2010

 

 

The main stock market in India for Indian shares closed at a record high today as it passed the 13,000 mark. The SENSEX has risen 36% during 2006 despite a turbulent patch earlier in the year. The rise is attributed to strong earnings from key banks and technology firms like (InfoSys, Wipro, Satyam and TATA Consulting).

New research has found that shares in the major India-based IT services providers have vastly outperformed their western rivals so far this year, despite falling sharply in May and starting from valuations based on much higher multiples of earnings and revenues.

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Progeon Ltd ranked the 4th amongst India's BPO comanies is to be known as Infosys BPO Ltd from now onwards. The new name emphasises that the company is part of the Infosys group.

Infosys BPO

Indian IT companies such as Infosys, Wipro, and TCS are having to respond to the increase rate of staff turnover by increasing salaries by upto 20%. The trigger being the likes of IBM and EDS investing heavily in India and luring staff to new positions. Some analysts are predicting that India will see more and more work move to countries like China and Vietnam as the wages of Indian IT staff increase.

Andy Mukherjee at Bloomberg takes a closer look at the issue.

It is being reported that Telstra and Optus are looking to outsource work to India from Australia to reduce costs. Optus is an Australian leader in integrated telecommunications, delivering cutting-edge communications, information technology and entertainment. Telstra provide a range of fixed phone, mobile, Internet and Pay TV solutions.

Optus is looking to increase the size of its Indian call centre and Telstra is looking sign a major deal outsourcing deal with Wipro. In 2004 Telstra outsourced parts of it's business to IBM, EDS and InfoSys.

NASSCOM have announced the top 20 IT service and computer software exporters in India for 2005-06.
During the period exports rose by 32% to US$17.3 billion.
  
The top 5 companies are:

1. TATA Consultancy Services (TCS)
2. Infosys
3. Wipro
4. Satyam Computer Services
5. HCL Technologies

See the Full NASSCOM list.

The data does not include contributions to the Indian economy by US listed companies like IBM, HP, and EDS.

AMD is looking to increase its market share in India over the next 12 to 18 months. As part of this it will be doing the following:

• Doubling AMD's engineers in India to 200
• Be a partner on e-Government initiatives
  
• Taking advantage of the 1 billion people in India for whom more and more will want a PC. Upto 5 million PCs were sold in India during 2005-06
  
• Partner with HP, IBM and other enterprise server vendors
• Work closely with IT companies such as Wipro and Infosys, plus western companies out sourcing to India.

InfoSys have announced that for the first time they are actively seeking to hire graduates from Universities in the US and UK in 2007. The company is looking to fill 300 graduate jobs in the USA and 25 graduate jobs in the UK.

The initiative is part of the steps it is taking to diversify its work force.

Read the Official InfoSys Press Release for more details.

InfoSys (INFY) announced today that they are acquiring a further 23% stake in Progeon from CitiCorp for cash. InfoSys is the majority owner of Progeon a Business Proccess Outsourcing (BPO) and Business Process Management (BPM) specialist operating in India, Czech Republic and the Philippines. Progeon implements BPO, BPM and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) in the following industries:

• Banking
• Capital Markets
• Communications Service Providers
• Healthcare
• Insurance
• Manufacturing

 

With a relatively small population base speaking Danish, Norwegian or Swedish some wonder how outsourcing from these countries would work. However there are a growing number of examples of success stories in this field. Where companies such as Wipro and Kring are leading the way.

An interesting discussion on outsourcing to India from Norway is captured in the minutes of a meeting help at the India embassy in Norway between IT professionals.

A further example of how the outsourcing model can work is provided by KRING, to whom Telia have recently outsourced work on an internal knowledge management system. The KRING outsourcing model provides the development resource for this project in India put keeps the project management aspect within Denmark

Further examples of growth in the level of outsourcing from Scandinavia to India are that during 2005 Kring:

• Increased their office space in Denmark
• Opened an office in Oslo Norway
• Expanded there facilities in India

Wipro Scandinavian Case Studies:

• Barwil (www.barwil.com)
• The Norwegian Directorate of Taxes 
• JD Edwards in Sweden
• Streamlining the sales order process for a telecom service provider

The importance of the accuracy of data filed to the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) was highlighted a couple of years ago by the cases of Enron and WorldCom. After Sarbanes-Oxley as part of a series of steps to combat this the SEC announced at the end of March that 17 companies would be taking part in a pilto program to use interactive financial data in their filings. Amongst the 17 corportaions named was InfoSys.

The 17 companies taking part in the SEC pilot are:

• 3M Company
• Altria Group
• Brazilian Petroleum Corporation
• Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
• The Dow Chemical Company
• Gol Intelligent Airlines
• Infosys Technologies Limited
• Microsoft Corporation
• Mobile Reach International
• Net Servicos De Comunicacao SA
• Old Mutual Capital
• Pfizer
• R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company
• South Financial Group
• United Technologies Corporation
• Xerox Corporation
• XM Satellite Radio Holdings

 
The eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) XML format will be used to submit the data.

InfoSys (INFY) is expecting to open a Infrastructure Management Centre in Prague next month, to provide a bridge between its operations in Europe and its off-shore services. The new infrastructure management centre will be situated in the Progeon¹ offices. Setting up centres of operations in Eastern European countries is an activity that has been carried out by many of the other players such as IBM, EDS, Cap Gemini and HP.

¹ = Progeon is the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) subsiduary of InfoSys.

When Air India placed an order for 68 Boeing aircraft earlier this year it was announced that US $2 billion would be invested back into the Indian economy. An example of this re-investment and outsourcing of work back to India was illustrated with the announcement this week of collaboration between InfoSys and Spirit AeroSystems, a Boeing contractor.

The two companies will set up an aerospace engineering centre in Bangalore.

 

AMR Research, a leading supply chain research company has published a report identifying  InfoSys as being in an ideal position to deliver Supply Chain Management (SCM) solutions to clients.

Source: An Executive Guide to Selecting Retail Service Providers

InfoSys released the company's Q3 results for the 3rd quarter ending 31/12/2005 today.

Resulting in a near 10% fall in the company's stock price.

Following on from InfoSys, Wipro has been given permission to construct buildings taking up a further 30 acres at the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park (RGCTP). This expansion is part of the second phase of the RGCTP.

The RGCTP is a Special Economic Zone approved by the Government of India and has considerable backing from the Union Territory of Chandigarh.