Curtain Raiser: NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2009

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The 17th edition of NASSCOM India Leadership Forum, the flagship event of NASSCOM, is being held at a very critical juncture in the short yet exciting history of Indian IT/BPO industry.

Recession in US and downturn in India is exerting lot of pressure on Indian IT/BPO industry, to devise a calibrated strategy to come out of the uncertain times unscathed.

Add to it the situation of mistrust emanating from unfortunate Satyam scandal, which has cast serious aspersions on the structure of corporate governance for Indian IT/BPO industry, a industry which hitherto were seen among the most trusted and transparent industries.

These uninvited incidents has put an added onus on the NASSCOM India Leadership Forum that apart from helping Indian IT software and services industry stay on track to touch $60 billion in exports during FY 2009-10, the forum has to imprint the thought that partnering with Indian IT/BPO industry is the best bet for countries to get out of recession.

NILF 2009 also finds itself bagged with additional responsibility of assuaging the fears of world community regarding security, not only of data but also people, property and IT investments in India following the recent Mumbai terror attacks.

This year Leadership Forum will mark NASSCOM’s 20th year and will be bringing under one roof industry leaders, thought gurus, analysts, Government decision makers, academia and IT users from across the world.

Sangeeta Gupta, vice president, NASSCOM in an interaction with Idhries Ahmad of CIOL is confident that NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2009 will be successful in assuaging the concerns of both Indian and international community both in terms of recession and security.

 

SOA adoption is not function of pricing alone

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Intelligroup, a global provider of business consulting, technology, and outsourcing services has been consistently included in the in the ‘Strong Performers’ category and received high client satisfaction scores by leading industry research firms.

The company has operations in the Americas, Japan, AsiaPacific, and Europe and is present in India in Hyderabad and Bangalore and has plans to setup a new centre in Pune.

Idhries Ahmad of CIOL caught up with Vikram Gulati, President and CEO of Intelligroup to know about company’s India operations and go to market strategy.

Gulati, previously, head of Wipro’s global Enterprise Application Solutions Group, also talks in detail about trends around Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and how companies are taking to SOA globally and specifically in India.

He also shares how his company has fared last year in terms of revenues and new customer acquisitions.

CIOL: We have been seeing lots of noise surrounding SOA in the recent years. Is it still hype or have we passed the stage and seeing SOA getting adopted mainstream?

Vikram Gulati: Definitely, I would say that SOA has become mainstream and no longer only a hype. People have to understand that SOA is not a concept that suddenly came out of nowhere. Though the term, SOA is new, the concept is not new at all.

 

Headstrong acquires US based BPO firm

Lydian Data Services is now Headstrong Business Services

Idhries Ahmad

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Global financial services consulting firm, Headstrong has acquired the Lydian Data services, a privately owned diversified financial services firm.

Lydian Data Services provides Business Process Outsourcing, business connectivity and transaction management solutions to mortgage originators, secondary market conduits and investors. The company specialises in mortgage data connectivity solutions, mortgage data management, core banking data integration and loan transfer systems.

The company has processed mortgage volumes of over $150 billion over the last four years.

Following the acquisition, whose financial terms were not disclosed, Lydian Data Services is now Headstrong Business Services. The company will be overseen by Rakesh Mittal, Senior Vice President, Headstrong. However, the present CEO of Lydian, William Decker, will remain in chair.

Speaking to CIOL, Harsh Singh Lohit, Managing Director, Headstrong India, said the strategic acquisition of Lydian Data services, is part of Head Strong multi pronged strategy to achieve $500 million in revenues by 2011.

“This acquisition is value based acquisition. We are not buying a company. We are buying competence. With acquisition of LDS and its platforms,

 

Steria to tap Indian market this year

Steria’s solutions for credit card fraud management, Airport management system and command and control solutions for police makes sense for Indian markets

Idhries Ahmad

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Europe based IT services company, Steria will be aggressively targeting the opportunity thrown by domestic Indian market in 2009. The formerly Xansa, is also giving final touches to its center of excellence in retail in India, which will start soon. The company will also be doubling its head count in India by 2011.

Speaking to CIOL, Mukesh Aghi, chairman and chief executive officer, Steria, said going forward, Indian domestic market will throw up huge opportunities and as company, Steria cannot afford to ignore those opportunities.

“We cannot ignore India. We will be in the country in 2009,” said Aghi.

Aghi, however added the company, will do its home work before it makes its maiden venture in the country.

” We have to come with right solutions that make sense for Indian customers We have huge expertise in traffic management systems in Singapore, Paris and London and we can offer these solution for Indian cities.

 

Destination Europe

The low hanging fruit in US is almost gone and it is time Indian IT companies re iron their European strategy, for the journey is going to be difficult

Idhries Ahmad

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The uncertainties in US market coupled with the not so comfortable noises from new US president about off shoring, means Europe for time being finds itself finally perched atop the agenda for many Indian service providers, who hitherto hadn’t worried to fish in troubled waters.

However, outsourcing market in Europe, is not going to be low hanging fruit like it was in US and Indian service providers have to work hard to capture market.

Apart from UK, which is predominantly English speaking, continental Europe calls for a calibrated strategy for business environment presents extremely complex and difficult set of challenges.

Europe as a continent, though bound a common currency, isn’t a monolith like US with each country within the continent having different culture, language and business environments.

Not to forget, every country has their own stringent regulations, labour laws and trade unions, who have been touchy about the word outsourcing and harbour deep fears about security of their data handled by Indian companies some hundred thousand kilometers away.

Add to that the fierce fight, that traditional European local or multinational providers who have been enjoying greater mind share among European buyers, would put up for market share, these Indian IT vendors have tough jobs on their hands.

 

Curtain Raiser CIOL CChange 2009: Be prepared to do more with less

Invest in technologies, where payback is closer to the horizon

Idhries Ahmad

NEW DELHI, INDIA: In the first part of our speaker series for CIOL C Change 2009, Idhries Ahmad of CIOL catches up with Prasanto Kumar Roy, President & Chief Editor, ICT Publications, CyberMedia.

Roy, a veteran in enterprise technology trends, and with more than twenty years experience in writing for CIO community, feels the current uncertain times will be putting enormous pressure on CIO across the board to deliver faster with whatever resources they have been already allocated.

“If certain level of service was acceptable in better times, the tolerance to service level violations now will be extremely low ,”says Roy

Roy also points that, going forward this year, CIO will be expected to make significant contributions in helping companies achieve higher growth and market share and also reduce cost in certain areas,

However he adds, without necessarily, looking at strategic investments where the ROI is more than three years.

“CIOs need not to ask for more funds than allocated and if he invests in any of new technologies, make sure that payback is near to horizon”, adds Roy.

Roy also discuses some of the top enterprise technology trends for 2009 and also explains why the need to go Green for enterprises is more pressing than ever.

Excerpts:

On your toes: Deliver much much faster than you used to do

 

BT rules out job cuts in India

NEW DELHI, INDIA: British Telecom is excited about Indian market opportunity and is targeting twenty percent of networked IT market in India, which BT expect to be around 24 billion Euro in 2010-11.

The company has also ruled out any lay offs in India in response to the global slow down and expects to continue its positive momentum in the country. British Telecom had recently announced that it would cut 10,000 jobs by March 2009, following an 11 per cent dip in its profit after tax for the first half of the current financial year.

The company had laid off 4000 employees directly recruited by BT and remaining 6000 which were on the job rolls of contractors, consultants and agency staff working for BT.

Speaking to CIOL, Allen Ma, President, BT Asia Pacific, said British Telecom is excited about Indian market opportunity and  expects to continue its positive momentum in the country.

 

Software testing is inferior to development is a myth

As a test engineer, you play an important role in ensuring that the final software application or product meets the desired quality standards, and the success or failure of the application or product largely depends on its quality

Idhries AhmadNEW DELHI, INDIA: Software testers have traditionally thought off by their more ‘advantaged’ developer community as some ones who don’t get involved in high-end and challenging work, and hence don’t deserve the attention and recognition that they themselves command.

However, Ramanna, strongly feels that software testers are no less cerebral to software developers when it comes to their contribution to the software development life-cycle activity. The notion  “Testing is inferior to development, says Ramana,  is pure myth and needs to be corrected.

“Software testing is as important as any other software development lifecycle activity. As a test engineer, you play an important role in ensuring that the final software application or product meets the desired quality standards, and the success or failure of the application or product largely depends on its quality”, says Ramana

Ramanna, with over 13 years of work experience that includes 11 plus years in software testing is part of Virtusa’s software testing practice and heads the Solution Accelerators group. He is CSQA certified and specializes in test management, test strategy, test automation frameworks & test process improvement & solution accelerators.

 

“Recession is an opportunity”

Recession rather than a threat, should be seen as blessing in disguise by CIO’s as it is forcing them to have a re-look at their existing IT infrastructure and fine tune it to streamline processes, improve productivity and reduce costs

Idhries Ahmad

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Current uncertain times are putting extreme pressures on CIO’s across verticals to make sure IT investments already made or planned are optimised to the hilt.

Making every dollar count, puts onus on CIO to go for prudent IT infrastructure restructuring and re- tuning it to help company save costs and ride over the tough times.

Allen Ma, President, BT Asia Pacific, feels, recession rather than a threat, should be seen as blessing in disguise by CIO’s as it is forcing them to have a re-look at their existing IT infrastructure and how they can fine tune it to streamline processes, improve productivity and help their enterprises reduce costs.

“Lot of MNCs today are facing challenges in terms of cost cutting which is forcing these companies to go to basics and relook at the the call structure, the cost base etc and ask themselves where they can reduce the cost. This is a financial storm and enterprise are making it sure that as to why and how they are growing the business.

“We believe that based on what we have picked up from our customers in last two months is that we are even in a better position to help them grow,” says Allen.

“I see this as an opportunity rather than doom. Of course there are lots of new challenges but it us about how to help customers go through the current challenges and become even more stronger when the storm is behind us,” adds Allen.

 

BSNL to roll out 3G services by next month

Roll out to start with North East

Idhries Ahmad

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will be rolling out 3G services by the end of first month of next year. The incumbent will be initially rolling out commercial 3G services in the North East region following which the company will roll the services in phases in other parts of country.

“We are targeting end of next month as date for roll out of 3G services in the country. We have completed the testing of our networks and are ready for roll out of 3G services in North East”, said Kuldeep Goyal, CMD, BSNL.

However, Goyal didn’t confirm which cities in North East will see the first roll out of 3G services. Goyal added BSNL will be rolling out 3G services in other cities in the country in phased manner starting next month.

Ruling out the impact of slow down on the process of evaluation of BSNL tenders for 3G services, Goyal said time was being consumed in evaluating the tenders and wasn’t stalled because of recession.