Source: www.foxbusiness.com

LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill., — Demonstrating further progress in executing its focused growth agenda, Hewitt Associates, a global human resources services company, today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire CSi - The Remuneration Specialists, a specialist compensation consultancy that provides highly regarded data, analytics and compensation consulting solutions to organizations in Australia and New Zealand. CSi adds a strong compensation analytics capability to Hewitt’s broader-based HR consulting strengths in the region and makes Hewitt the only consulting company in Australia capable of delivering deep capabilities across compensation, engagement and other human capital applications to its clients.

Founded in 1985, CSi offers high-quality survey data on specific industries, occupations, and a wide range of job types, to companies of all sizes in Australia and New Zealand. CSi also provides compensation consulting services, compensation training and proprietary analytical tools.

“For the past two years, we’ve achieved double-digit growth in Asia Pacific, and we continue to look for opportunities that will further accelerate our growth and enhance our capabilities in key areas like talent, rewards and compensation consulting,” said Perry Brandorff, president of Hewitt’s consulting business. “CSi is a great addition to the Hewitt portfolio. The company is aligned with the strategic direction and growth plans of our Consulting business, and the acquisition further cements our position as one of the leading human resource consulting firms in the world.”

“Hewitt has been looking to strengthen its compensation analytics capabilities in Asia Pacific, and CSi was a natural fit,” said Matthew Levin, senior vice president of corporate strategy and development at Hewitt. “Our two companies have many complementary strengths and a shared client-service philosophy. Adding CSi’s market leading compensation analytics products and expertise to our current capabilities enables us to provide clients with comprehensive HR consulting services that are unmatched in the region.”

Source: www.efytimes.com

The Indian IT Services market with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.6 per cent will remain the fastest growing in the Asia Pacific region, although as a region Greater China will offer the largest market opportunity in dollar terms at the end of 2011. This comes from the Asia Pacific IT Services Market and Forecast, 2006-2011 report by Springboard Research. The IT Services market in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) will grow from $37.5 billion in 2007 to $55.9 billion in 2011, representing a CAGR of 10.5 per cent from 2006 to 2011, reveals the report.

“The Asia Pacific IT Services market is arguably the global leader in terms of growth, supplemented with a mix of mature and emerging markets,” said Phil Hassey, vice presiden, services research, Springboard Research. “The markets of interest are not just the top four – China, India, Australia and Korea – but the emerging ones like Indonesia and Vietnam, which will register significant growth going forward.”

The report uses Springboard’s Market Attractiveness Index to rank countries and individual IT Services markets on the basis of growth opportunities. According to the Market Attractiveness Index, the top 10 countries in the region are: People’s Republic of China, India, Australia, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Rest of ASEAN, Singapore and the Philippines.

“For India and China, local capabilities, offerings and presence is just the start of a list of essential requirements for success. On the other hand, existing relationships, marquee clients and strong partnerships can provide capabilities for expansion in markets such as Hong Kong and New Zealand with relatively limited opportunities,” Hassey added.

According to the report, application hosting with a CAGR of 19.5 per cent between 2007 and 2011, will register the fastest growth during the forecast period, although enterprise application integration at $7.8 billion will continue to be the largest component of the market by 2011. While enterprise IT outsourcing is the largest market in 2007, the reluctance of PRC firms to use the enterprise IT outsourcing model will reduce its relative size and weighting in the market by 2011.

The report also predicts that challenges in accessing and retaining IT Skills will accelerate the shift to external services providers, as enterprises will struggle to retain in-house key individuals and skill sets. Also, China will not challenge India as the home of offshore service delivery especially for English language requirements – as skill levels, quality, culture and governance are all more suited to India being a hub of global delivery against the PRC.

Source: www.foxbusiness.com

MUMBAI, India — New Portal Enhances Service for Global Business Process Outsourcing Provider

Intelenet Global Services, a leading provider of business process outsourcing services, has selected Verizon Business to develop, host and manage a secure portal for the exchange of information with clients, partners and vendors. The objective is to enhance the company’s collaborative capabilities and improve business transaction efficiency.

Intelenet provides contact-center, finance, accounting and transaction processing services to Fortune 500 companies in the financial services, retail, insurance, telecom, manufacturing, travel and hospitality industries. The India-based company employs more than 25,000 people at 24 locations globally.

Intelenet’s expanding business increased the number of users connecting to its systems, slowing file-transfer time, which affected customer service. The company therefore decided to develop a customised portal to facilitate high-speed file exchange in a secure environment. By outsourcing the work to Verizon Business’ IP Application Hosting group, the new portal was developed faster and the enhanced services delivered more cost-effectively than if Intelenet had invested in additional in-house resources.

“The secure file-exchange portal has significantly improved file and information transfer speed, increasing our overall productivity and service levels,” said Rajendra Deshpande, chief technology officer, Intelenet Global Services. “Importantly, the secure environment also helps to increase trust among our customers and partners throughout the transaction process. We were confident that Verizon Business would cost-effectively deliver exactly what we needed in both application development and hosting services at a reasonable cost, thanks to our long-standing relationship with the company. We were not disappointed.”

John Samuel, president of Verizon Business India, said, “Intelenet’s ability to interface effectively with its partners, vendors and customers is crucial to its business. Verizon Business’ expertise in the development and delivery of hosted Web applications is empowering Intelenet to deliver enhanced customer service in a cost-efficient manner and therefore maintain its position in a competitive marketplace.”

Verizon IP Application Hosting provides a comprehensive suite of managed service capabilities to support customers’ Web-enabled business sites. Delivered from Verizon Business’ global data centers, the services offer fast, reliable and scalable bandwidth capabilities coupled with secure hosting capabilities and round-the-clock support. Customers benefit from lower total cost of ownership as well as enhanced service level agreements and performance.

Source: www.reuters.com

British telecoms firm BT Group Plc (BT.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it would hire up to 300 people in a global operation centre in India, as it aims to outsource more operations to emerging markets to keep costs lower.

The new facility at Gurgaon, near the Indian capital of Delhi, will support BT’s procurement, legal, finance and human resource operations, the company said in a statement.

“We have been working successfully in India for many years with partners who handle some of our non-core but mission critical activities,” Chief Executive Ben Verwaayen said in the statement.

BT said it contributed 2 percent to India’s $50 billion software services exports, and planned to step up outsourcing to India. The company has also built operation centres in Hungary, Brazil and China.

Source: www.zdnetasia.com
The Asia-Pacific IT services market is set to grow by a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5 percent to reach US$55.9 billion in 2011, according to new research.

“The markets of interest [in the region] are not just the top four–China, India, Australia and Korea–but [also] emerging ones like Indonesia and Vietnam, which will register significant growth going forward.”

China is expected to contribute significantly in dollar terms, and is ranked the most attractive market in terms of opportunities. Factors contributing to market attractiveness include local capabilities, service portfolio and presence, Hassey said. Nonetheless, factors such as existing relationships and prominent clientele can provide expansion opportunities even in limited growth markets such as Hong Kong or New Zealand, he added.

Application hosting, Springboard reported, will be the fastest growing area of IT services, with a forecast CAGR of 19.5 percent between 2007 and 2011.

In absolute terms, enterprise application integration or linking up various applications to improve business processes will overtake IT outsourcing to be the biggest segment of the IT services market in the region, contributing US$7.8 billion by 2011. IT outsourcing, the largest IT services segment in 2007, will shrink over the next few years due to a lack of demand from Chinese businesses, said Springboard.