HCL Technologies Ltd., India’s leading global IT Services Provider, has been ranked as the #1 Infrastructure Service Provider in the world in the Global Services 100 Survey conducted by Global Services magazine in association with Neo IT, a leading global outsourcing advisory firm. HCL Technologies took the top spot in this survey ahead of global majors, a trend which it has consistently followed. The company recently ranked #1 in another globally respected survey of 276 qualified global vendors the Brown-Wilson Group (Black Book of Outsourcing).

The Global Services 100 survey ascribed HCL’s leadership in the Infrastructure services space to it being one of the early providers of RIM as a service offering. “Having started off with offering a co-sourcing type of engagement years back, HCL continues its leadership position in RIM with a bevy of customers that include Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies,” the report reads.

The survey enlists the Top 100 global IT and BPO service providers covering a range of services including IT application services, infrastructure, FAO, HRO and contact centers. The top 100 list and the ranking in 10 categories are based on scientific methodology, starting with the responses arranged under four broad areas: size (revenue, employee strength, geographies covered, etc.); customers (customer base, testimonials and references, average contract size, etc.); skills (depth and breadth of offerings, delivery capability, quality initiatives, verticals covered, etc.) and other (attrition, training, etc.). A weighted scoring scheme, designed by a panel of practice experts from Global Services and neoIT, was used to rate each question.

Commenting on the company’s top ranking in the survey, Anant Gupta, President, HCL Technologies Infrastructure Services Division (HCLT ISD), stated, “HCL’s unique delivery model and expertise in the IT Infrastructure Management Services space has provided Transformational benefits to many global companies in the form of assessable savings and returns on their IT investment. We have constantly innovated and pioneered new propositions and delivery frameworks like Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM); Business Ready Infrastructure (BRI)/SaaS from Offshore; Enterprise Management Tools through a utility model; Integrated Operations and Management Services (IOMS) and the Global model of Service Delivery, based on the ‘Think Global and Act Local’ approach with an ecosystem of local and global partners. Needless to say, these are delivered with a sharp focus on value and customer satisfaction and have consistently provided returns beyond mere cost savings. It is this guarantee of innovation and value lifecycle blended with ‘risk-free transitions’ that has generated confidence among many Fortune/Global 1000 enterprises to make us their preferred IT Infrastructure vendor and edged us to the top spot in our space.”

Gupta added, “Our No. 1 position in this survey is an endorsement of HCL’s continued focus on differentiating with new paradigms for delivery of IT Infrastructure Services. Our distinct focus on transformation is witnessing great traction among customers, which is also reflected in the sheer size and scope of the recent engagements we’ve won and the many industry accolades we have received.”

HCL pioneered the concept of Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) with a co-sourcing model of engagement, which has added substantial value to customers including more than 70 Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises. HCL created a new uncontested market space which today has become a leading trend. HCL is widely acknowledged as a pioneer and a leader in global delivery of infrastructure management. The company was cited as a leader in Global IT Infrastructure Outsourcing in an independent vendor evaluation study by Forrester Wave™ (Q2, 2007).

About Global Services

Global Services 100 is a joint venture by Cybermedia LLC, India and CMP Media LLC, New York, two of the leading high-technology business-to-business multimedia companies that provide essential information and integrated marketing services to the technology and healthcare professionals worldwide. Global Services is a monthly magazine for global-sourcing managers. The publication examines both onshore and offshore outsourcing among shared and captive offshore operations. The vision of Global Services is aimed at providing strategies for sourcing the right people, processes and technologies. For more information visit www.globalservicesmedia.com.

About HCLT ISD

HCLT ISD is a leading IT services company and a subsidiary of HCL Technologies Ltd. (also known as HCL Comnet in the domestic market). A focused player in the IT services arena, HCLT ISD seeks to provide simplified infrastructure solutions through delivering high-performance management services for complex, distributed infrastructure environments encompassing the Internet, Client and legacy based infrastructures. HCLT ISD addresses the growing demand for the cost-effective management of technology infrastructure across geographically dispersed locations. With a mission to develop innovative solutions for enterprises worldwide, the company has developed a unique model for Remote IT infrastructure management that enables customer organizations to achieve superior infrastructure performance and significantly reduced costs through a global delivery model. For more information, please visit www.hclisd.com

About HCL Technologies

HCL Technologies is one of India’s leading global IT Services companies, providing software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management services and BPO. Having made a foray into the global IT landscape in 1999 after its IPO, HCL Technologies focuses on Transformational Outsourcing, working with clients in areas that impact and re-define the core of their business. The company leverages an extensive global offshore infrastructure and its global network of offices in 18 countries to deliver solutions across select verticals including Financial Services, Retail & Consumer, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Hi-Tech & Manufacturing, Telecom and Media & Entertainment (M&E). For the quarter ended 31st December 2007, HCL Technologies, along with its subsidiaries had last twelve months (LTM) revenue of US $ 1.6 billion (Rs. 6715 crores) and employed 47,954 professionals. For more information, please visit www.hcltech.com

About HCL Enterprise

HCL Enterprise is a $4.7 billion (Rs. 19,215 crore) leading Global Technology and IT enterprise that comprises two companies listed in India - HCL Technologies & HCL Infosystems. The 3-decade-old enterprise, founded in 1976, is one of India’s original IT garage start-ups. Its range of offerings span Product Engineering, Custom & Package Applications, BPO, IT Infrastructure Services, IT Hardware, Systems Integration, and distribution of ICT products. The HCL team comprises approximately 53,000 professionals of diverse nationalities, who operate from 18 countries including 360 points of presence in India. HCL has global partnerships with several leading Fortune 1000 firms, including leading IT and Technology firms. For more information, please visit www.hcl.in

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/02/report_from_ind_2.html

The offshore outsourcing industry’s looking at running data centers remotely as one of its hottest growth segments. One reason, a recent report concludes, is that as hardware prices fall, labor takes an ever-larger share of the costs. So to cut costs, CIOs will cut staff, the consulting firm McKinsey predicts. “Moore’s Law’s latest victim has become labor,” Vivek Pandit, a McKinsey consultant, told attendees at the recent Nasscom conference here in India.

I visited Infosys’ campus in Bangalore today, and CEO S. Gopalakrishnan shared this optimism that Indian firms can do to data center infrastructure what they have in applications—that is, use lower cost labor in India to monitor, support, and add functions to it. Today, that’s just 5% of Infosys’ business, but Gopalakrishnan clearly expects growth. “The value proposition we bring is similar to what we brought to application management,” he says.

That’s how U.S. engine manufacturer Cummins came to outsourced its infrastructure management beginning in 2003. “We had very good success with application outsourcing, and there was a push in the company to consider more outsourcing,” says CIO Gail Farnsley. Cummins contracts with HCL to manage its two U.S. data centers, plus two opened last year in Singapore and the U.K. Recently Cummins has been consolidating data center functions, away from having a clutch of servers at every factory to having centralized data processing and “lights out data closest at the facilities,” says Farnsley. Cummins, like most companies doing RIM (NSDQ: RIMM), keeps ownership of its data centers, and just contracts out their management.

Offshoring infrastructure management is a harder sell to companies than application development or support. The infrastructure’s the information factory that makes a lot of companies run, and outsourcing that management isn’t something companies can do half-way. Offshore an app dev project that craters, and it’s one project ruined. Have an outsourcer foul up the infrastructure, the company could grind to a halt. That’s why RIM’s a long sales cycle, often with many more execs along with the CIO involved.

But more CIOs seem to be getting comfortable with the idea fast. In McKinsey’s 2006 survey, CIOs said 10% of their infrastructure roles could be offshored. In 2007, that share leapt to 27%. The report– sponsored by the India IT industry association Nasscom– concludes 70% to 75% of infrastructure roles ultimately can be outsourced. “The comfort factor has gone way up,” says Anant Gupta, president of HCL’s infrastructure business. Later this week, I’ll be visiting Microland in Bangalore, one of the earliest suppliers of infrastructure services, for more on this trend.

But does India really have a competitive advantage in infrastructure management? It’s possible other emerging markets, with lower costs than India’s surging salaries, could seize this moment in much the same way India did with the offshore application development boom. Gopalakrishnan dismisses that as unlikely. “In BPO I will agree the advantage is limited in India, and other countries have an opportunity,” he says. “But when it comes to infrastructure management, it’s highly technical. India still has an advantage. … It also has an advantage in scalability – where else can you scale to 100,000 people, 500,000 people?”

McKinsey actually puts the number a bit lower—325,000 to 375,000 jobs in India by 2013, if it can capture around half of RIM’s growth. It’s tough to imagine India’s talent-strapped IT industry finding another 300-some thousand infrastructure experts. But the growth’s already begun. Today, India’s top 12 RIM outsourcers employ about 40,000 people in the field, up from 6,900 in 2004, McKinsey estimates. With smaller firms and company-owned “captive” remote management in India, the number’s 70,000 to 80,000, says Pandit.