Source: www.moneycontrol.com

3i, a world leader in private equity, today announces the opening of a new Knowledge and Resource Centre in Bangalore, India, as a result of a partnership with Infosys BPO.

3i already has significant operations in India through its local growth capital and infrastructure teams, with recent investments including Nimbus Communications, a media and entertainment company focused on TV, advertising and sports rights, UFO Movies Pvt Ltd, the world’s largest digital cinema chain, Adani Power, a 2,600MW coal fired power plant in Gujarat and the recent successful IPO of Mundra Ports, the deepest all weather natural port, on the west coast of India.

The new facility with an initial staff of 20 will be managed by business process outsourcing subsidiary of Infosys Technologies Ltd (“INFY”), a NASDAQ listed global leader in next generation IT and consulting services. Having previously worked with Infosys and deployed outsourcing to powerful effect with our portfolio companies, the additional skills and resource Infosys brings will help provide further competitive advantage to 3i.

Infosys will initially focus on providing 3i with global research services to support its investment business as well as delivering a centralised service for 3i’s accounts payable, providing enhanced capability to 3i investment teams. 3i has pioneered many developments in the Private Equity industry during its 60 years and this latest innovation follows 3i’s rapid international business growth in recent times.

Chris Rowlands, Managing Partner, 3i Asia, explained “The partnership between 3i and Infosys BPO is a natural one; we’re both global, we’re both innovative in our respective markets and we’re both acknowledged for our partnership style. We believe that the expertise and additional resource Infosys brings will further drive 3i’s competitive advantage in India and globally.”

Joydeep Mukherjee, Vice President and Head, Knowledge Services, Infosys BPO, added “We are delighted to partner with a firm like 3i which has similar values and a similar innovative mindset. Infosys BPO brings to the table strong research and finance capabilities in the knowledge resource centre. We will leverage industry practices, technology, consulting and analytics in their transformational journey. “

Source: sify.com

Satyam BPO, the integrated business process outsourcing arm of Satyam Computer Services, has evolved into addressing integrated process and transformational deals focussing on core business.

Valuations are attractive and the company continues to be engaged in discussions for potential buy-out candidates, though there is no firm deadline or deal size mandate, according to Roddam Venkatesh, Chief Executive Officer of Satyam BPO (earlier Nipuna).

Venkatesh told Business Line that the company had made big strides in the last four years and is now growing at a rate of about 60 per cent this fiscal and has provided a revenue guidance of $61 million.

“Being part of a $2 billion technology solutions provider, we have significant advantages over a pure BPO company. These include strong dispersed geographical presence and balance sheet. This has also helped the company graduate to the next stage of outsourcing, that is to address core processes of companies,” he said.

Scaling up

Providing the example of how the company addresses insurance claims processing, end-to-end, and procurement services for automotive company, and mapping solutions, Venkatesh said this reflects the next phase of BPO business that the company is addressing.

The company now employs about 3,700 people across Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and in the client sites in the US, UK and Belgium. The focus now is on doing more with the same numbers, a model that has changed from earlier number addition approach, he explained.

Evaluating options

The company has about 30 clients across different business segments spread across the globe. Lately, some of the businesses are seen to be questioning some of the outsourcing models. Some either prefer a local centre option or a near shore business model. As a part of a company, which has over 59 centres, there is greater flexibility, he said.

As a part of the overseas business interest driven by some of the clients, the company is evaluating operations in Latin America, West Asia and Far East, he explained.

Asked if the deal sizes are getting bigger, Venkatesh said that the models are changing rapidly and it has become difficult to quantify the nature of work. Therefore, it all depends on the nature of processes and what is being offered to customers.

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

Sonata Software, Bangalore-based, mid-tier IT services firm, is actively looking at acquisitions overseas to accelerate its growth trajectory. Sonata would be looking at companies across Europe and the US for domain expertise as well as market reach.

Sonata managing director B Ramaswamy said, it would be looking at acquiring companies in the range of $30-50 million and these would be funded through a combination of debt and internal accruals. He added that it would be looking very strongly at Sweden, where, it feels, there is a strong opportunity of offshoring and outsourcing of IT services.

At the same time, Sonata which has a strong presence in the domestic market, would be looking at companies in the Indian market. These acquisition plans of Sonata comes on the back of the experience it has had in picking up majority stake in Germany’s TUI InfoTec.

Sonata acquired 50.1% stake in TUI InfoTec, the in-house IT arm of TUI in September, 2006 for Euro 18 million and this gave it a foothold in the German market. Mr Ramaswamy said, despite the initial hiccups it has managed to successfully transfer the remote infrastructure management and IT services activity of TUI from Germany into India.

Now, it is looking at using TUI InfoTec to get a larger access into the German market.

It would primarily look at SMBs from the verticals of manufacturing, insurance and CPG. The Sonata MD said it would also be looking at other German speaking regions like Austria and Switzerland.

Sonata Software is present in two business segments — outsourced product development and enterprise solutions. Its primary region of operations are in the US, Europe and India.