Source: www.merinews.com

Lads from Tier II and Tier III cities of Punjab taste success in the global market, thanks to the enterprise of Sunil Khullar, a CA. Five States of USA have outsourced their Finance and Accounts activities to Khullar’s firm.

FINANCE AND Accounts outsourcing has now reached the Tier II and Tier III cities of Punjab. One such town is Mandi Gobindgarh. In its bazaar, you find young Punjabi boys working online for the North American clients of their company, Sunil Khullar InfoTech Management Services (P) Ltd. And yes, they derive total satisfaction from the job.

It all started three years ago, when Sunil Khullar, a Chartered Accountant, decided to enter outsourcing. He got in touch with Harmeet Singh Dhillon, a local software specialist and Harjinder Singh Jonjua, an overseas marketing specialist based in Mohali. Today, after three years of hard work and dedication, the results can be seen. Already the company is working for five States in USA; it has been adding newer States to the list. It is planning to enter the Canadian, British, Australian and NZ markets too.

Says Gurpreet Singh of the company, “I have grown up with the company from the Executive level to the Manager level. I am totally at home with the overseas clients as we work online with their staff daily. I am from Mandi Gobindgarh and never thought would work with Americans without leaving my town.”

Adds Sunil Khullar, “I am proud to lead my staff, all local Punjabi boys, tasting success in the global market”. In the changing global marketplace, the small towns of Punjab are churning out their own success stories in outsourcing with home-grown entrepreneurs like Sunil Khullar.

Indian companies are establishing India’s reputation as a trustworthy outsourcing destination by proactively addressing data privacy and security concerns.

Data privacy and security are not new concepts in outsourcing. When there is transfer of sensitive and confidential information, concerns about a leakage or abuse do arise. For anti outsourcing parties, data privacy and security is cited as one of the main reasons to curb outsourcing. Some consider the security risks to be the same if the data were handled offshore or onshore, while others are unsure about the data privacy and security laws in countries like India and view it as a serious deterrent to their decision to outsource.

Whether or not the concerns are baseless, companies in the US and UK are under increasing pressure from legislation that insists on them guaranteeing the privacy of their customers’ financial and medical data. Indian companies realize that they need to scale up their security in order to cater to these concerns before they actually turn out to be a problem. From individual companies to associations like NASSCOM, proactive measures are being taken to ensure that India ’s unique value proposition is “trustworthy outsourcing”.

How is India dealing with data privacy and security issues?

Most of the data privacy and security fears are unfounded. India may not have laws which are as stringent as those in the US , but the government and associations such as NASSCOM are working towards ensuring that laws are on par with international legislation. Except for one known case of fraud there have been no other problems in India ’s $3.6 billion business-process services. Last year a programmer for India ’s Geometric Software Solutions Co. tried to sell a U.S. client’s intellectual property. He was arrested and is awaiting trial.

Other than legislation, measures set up between companies which outsource to India and Indian vendors ensure that there is little left to chance. Confidential data is stored on the servers of the companies that are outsourcing and their Indian vendors have tightly controlled access. Therefore if there is a security breach the US or European company outsourcing the work is legally responsible.

However, these are technicalities which cannot be used to skirt the issue and Indian companies realize this. In the instance of a single security breach the publicity created will not only destroy the reputation of the concerned company, but of India ’s well established name as the foremost outsourcing destination.

India as a trustworthy outsourcing destination

The proactive measures taken by the government and individual companies have definitely made an impression. Hill & Associates, an enterprise security and risk management consultancy firm, conducted a study which revealed that the Indian cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai are low risk outsourcing locations.

Many of the fears and insecurities are unwarranted as one has to understand that Indian companies have as much to lose as their clients if an incident were to occur. This is why efforts to counter any mishaps are being taken. The country is not only moving up the value chain by offering more complex services, but is determined to establish its trustworthiness. The Hill & Associates study shows that India is on the right track.

Source: www.businessweek.com

The Miami Herald is outsourcing some of its advertising production work to India, the newspaper’s editor said Thursday.

Starting in January, copyediting and design in a weekly section of Broward County community news and other special advertising sections will be outsourced to Mindworks, based in New Delhi.

The project is still in the testing phase, so it was not clear if or how employment in South Florida will be affected, Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal said.

Mindworks will also monitor reader comments posted to online stories, he said.

Earlier this month, The Sacramento Bee, also owned by the McClatchy Co., announced it would outsource some of its advertising production work to India.

In May, news Web site, pasadenanow.com, was widely criticized after editors hired two reporters in India to cover the Los Angeles suburb.

Source: www.businessweek.com

The computer giant’s five-year contract with Vodafone Essar will expand its already huge presence in the country. Will local shops fight back?

On Dec. 10, IBM (IBM) bagged a five-year contract from India’s third-largest wireless operator, Vodafone (VOD) Essar. The deal includes maintaining billing, data centers, and financial systems for Vodafone in India. Vodafone became India’s third largest cellular operator when it acquired Hutchison Whampoa’s 67% stake in Hutchison Essar in February, 2007.

Vodafone is an existing IBM client across the world—especially in the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Greece, New Zealand, and Australia—and Vodafone uses IBM for all its customer-related IT requirements.

But for IBM, this contract is a big, big deal. Vodafone is IBM’s third large telecom hookup in India. In March, it won a 10-year, $800 million contract to integrate and transform business processes and IT infrastructure for Idea Cellular, India’s fifth-largest cellular operator. In 2004, IBM won a 10-year IT outsourcing deal from Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom player. The contract was then valued at about $750 million and has grown to about $1.2 billion.

Hiring more workers

IBM’s rise in India has been breathtaking. Since 2004 the company has ramped up its business, with research labs and global delivery centers. In 2007, IBM won deals for application and business transformation services and infrastructure management in India’s rapidly growing sectors such as telecom, real estate (DLF), aviation (Delhi International Airport), health care (Apollo Hospitals), and a microfinance technology service provider. It has 73,000 employees in the country and plans to invest $6 billion over the next three years to set up infrastructure, hire more employees, and boost education and training.

This year alone, IBM’s India revenues will be up 30%, to $1 billion. “India is the fastest-growing market for IBM, and we want to maintain our lead,” says Shankar Annaswamy, managing director for IBM India and South Asia.

All of IBM’s telecom deals have been won over established Indian players such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys (INFY), Wipro (WIT), Satyam and HCL. Dabur, one of India’s large sellers of health-care and ayurvedic products, outsourced its IT infrastructure to Accenture (ACN) in a 10-year contract. Accenture will also consult on the company’s business plans and build and run IT systems for supply chain and sales.

Looking for Outside Expertise

The reason Indian companies are choosing non-Indian service suppliers is simple: In the new growth sectors, particularly telecom and retail, Indian players lack expertise. “It’s all about the skill sets that global players have,” says Ravi Trivedy, executive director of KPMG Advisory Services. Another wrinkle: Some industries, such as cellular, are actually more advanced in India than in the West. Indian telcos say local tech companies are ill-equipped to handle their sophisticated, rapidly transforming IT application, maintenance, and development needs.

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The latest study suggests that Indian offshoring is facing rapid growth globally. The trend in the Information Technology field is changing and now IT companies are shifting more towards overseas service providers. The study also suggests that IT companies globally are now seeking more help from Offshore Outsourcing Service providers.

In Information Technology, as far as overseas development services are concerned, countries like India, China, Russia, Philippines and many others are in demand. But among this list India is the leader for IT services, while China is on the second spot. Countries like Russia, Philippines and others are relatively growing and are new players for such overseas IT services.

India is now the ‘Center of Attraction’ globally for almost all types of IT services. Along with these IT services now India is in demand for call-centers, BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) and KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) services.

Indian ITES players should feel happy as reports suggest that the US economic slowdown will increase demand for global services in 2008. But on the down side, the presidential elections next year could delay contract signing. This was revealed by NeoIT, the global management consulting firm in their latest report tracking the service trends for 2008.

It predicts the dollar will continue to weaken. So clients should expect to take more aggressive action that will include renegotiation or modification of contracts. Also, the US presidential election will lead to large companies to avoid announcing substantial agreements or employee reduction in 2008, to avoid any potential risk or negative publicity. This could lead to a backlog of unsigned agreements.

Moreover, the green outsourcing movement is expected to pick up momentum next year and move beyond its earlier hype. Service providers will take concrete steps to introduce environmental business practices and reduce their carbon footprint.

Global clients will turn to new countries as inflation and employee turnover in Indian cities like Bangalore and Pune will frustrate them. Talent shortage will push them to Tier-II within India, as well as Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia. Markets, such as Canada, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico, will be among the new hot spots in providing sourcing solutions.

However, the study also predicts that moving operations to smaller cities will complicate matters for the clients.

The growing competition of global services will motivate vendors to strongly differentiate themselves. Vendors will focus on re-engineering their client processes and emphasising their ability to deliver tangible results.

The report suggests that software and IT will remain the strongest segment, but engineering will outpace BPO to become the second largest segment. Meanwhile, finance and accounting market will reach critical mass as processes and pricing become more standardised.