Indian Shares

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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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.

To meet growth targets and manage costs Wipro is opening a new Business Process OutSourcing (BPO) centre in Vietnam. Wipro is looking to take advantage of the countires lower operating costs. Vietnam will join Romania as an international BPO center in the Wipro service portfolio.

Wipro have successfully been audited by the Automotive Group and have been granted SPICE Organisational Maturity Level 5 certification. The certification recognises Wipro's automotive process capability.

The Automotive Group includes car manufactures such as Audi, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Fiat, Jaguar, Land Rover, Porsche, Volkswagen and Volvo.

Press Release: Wipro

India IT giant Wipro has recently been on a European shopping spree aquiring 2 companies to bolster its portfolio and skills.

Wipro has purchased Enabler Informatica SA in a cash deal. Enabler Informatica will add to Wipro's retail industry offerings. Wipro has also purchased Finnish Saraware Oy also in a cash deal. Saraware operates in the telecoms industry, offering software development and software testing services. Saraware recently became a Microsoft Certified Partner.

It is expected that as part of honouring a clause in the contract when Indian Airlines purchased new Airbus aircraft last year, Airbus will be outsourcing and estimated $400 million of AEROSPACE work to India. The work will go to a consortium of Indian companies headed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and will include Wipro, Tata Consulting Services (TCS) and InfoTech.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is a public company backed by the Indian Ministry of Defence, who have manufactured planes and components under license. At present Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) builds under license the Sukhoi Su-30MKI is preparing to start production of the British Aerospace (BAe) Hawk.  

Sun Microsytems and Wipro have announced that the two companies will be opening a Java Centre of Excellence in India. The centre will specialise in Grid Computing and Portal Technologies using the Sun Java Enterprise Sytem.

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

General Motors (GM) announced on the 2nd Feb 2006 the award a IT contracts to a variety of IT System Integrators. Electronic Data Systems (EDS) received $3.8 billion dollars of the General Motors contract, HP $700 million, awards were also made to Cap Gemini, Covisint and IBM.

Wipro received a contract for a reported $300 million from General Motors. Wipro will integrate the companies Middleware Systems and Information System and Services software tools.

Satyam Computer Services are reported to receive $150 million from work for HP and Cap Gemini. Satyam Computer Services will set up an Automotive Centre of Excellence in Detroit.

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.