Source: dnaindia.com

Local vendors won four of the 39 such deals globally

Human resource outsourcing (HRO) is seen as the next big thing for Indian BPO firms that are looking to expand the scope of their service and reach.

Under such deals, companies can outsource various HR functions such as payroll, recruitment, employee data management etc. A typical deal is of six -seven year duration.

“Of the 39 global enterprise (end-to-end) HRO deals announced last year, Indian vendors won four orders at a cumulative deal size of $350-400 million. This number is impressive, since this was the first year when Indian vendors have won enterprise HRO deals,” Rajesh Ranjan, director, Everest Research, an off shoring advisory firm said.

The four firms are Tata Consultancy, Wipro, Caliber Point (a subsidiary of Hexaware Technologies), and Infosys.

The HRO market can be broadly classified into discreet HRO and enterprise HRO, with the former involving outsourcing of a single process and the latter being end-to-end.

HRO as a concept took life only about a decade ago and is already a $3 billion opportunity, growing at 13-14% annually. Hewitt, Convergys, Accenture and IBM. The discreet HRO market, although several times the enterprise market, is highly fragmented.

Ranjan said many Indian and India-based companies were looking at a partnership model to tap this opportunity. “Ceridian, a US-based HRO firm, has tied up with Gurgaon-based Genpact to have an offshore presence. This is route more and more Indian companies could take,” he said.

Ranjan said an encouraging thing about Indian companies winning HRO deals was that, most of these were in Europe.

“Three of the four deals were signed in Europe. By value, it is 80% of the total contract value. This signifies the kind of risk diversification Indian companies are undertaking. The Indian vendors are not just leveraging India for such deals but are also using their delivery centre in Eastern European countries to service the accounts,” he said.

At 33% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) over the last two years, the Europe HRO market is growing at twice the rate of US, but on a lower volume.

The fact that India is becoming an important destination for HRO is clear from the fact that the segment has about 7,000 people working for it, against almost nil a few years back. “Thirteen leading global HRO firms have a presence in India. The 7,000 employees they hire in India represents half the total offshore employees of HRO firms,” he said.

Source: legaltimes.typepad.com

Law firms looking to cut costs by outsourcing their legal support services overseas could be jeopardizing their client confidentiality, according to a recent federal suit filed by a Bethesda, Md. firm.

Joseph Hennessey, name partner at Newman McIntosh & Hennessey, turned to the U.S.

District Court for the District of Columbia on May 7 seeking a ruling on the outsourcing of privileged client data that may be subject to eavesdropping by the U.S. government.

Hennessey, who in 2005 wrote this column for Legal Times on the Fourth Amendment and privacy rights, says foreign companies have no presumption of privacy because the National Security Agency is free to spy on them without constitutional constraints.

“We are really heading toward a collision between globalized economic interests and the limited extension of constitutional rights,” Hennessey says.

The lawsuit names President George W. Bush as a co-defendant along with Acumen Legal Services of India and its U.S. subsidiary, Acumen Solutions of Houston, Texas.

The firm is looking to the court to rule on whether outsourcing of legal services compromises constitutional rights and whether consent should be required before such data is sent abroad. It also wants the court to order law firms to disclose their use of foreign legal support and to order that the government establish protocols to shield attorney-client information from surveillance.

“It seeks this declaration knowing that foreign nationals who reside overseas lack Fourth Amendment protections,” says the firm’s complaint for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. “It seeks this declaration having been informed … that the United States government engages in pervasive surveillance of electronically transmitted data.”

Hennessey, who also has filed requests for opinions with the D.C. Bar and the Maryland State Bar Association, says Acumen solicited his company via emails earlier this year.

“It’s not paranoia. It’s just fact,” Hennessey says. “Now that we’re outsourcing services, we have given no consideration to the ongoing practice of the government harvesting information out there.”

He says he’s also concerned that information from his firm, which especializes in personal injury and medical malpractice, could — through discovery — fall into the hands of competitors who employ outsourced services.

District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who also is chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, has been assigned to the case. A representative for Acumen’s corporate headquarters in India had no comment.

Source: businesswire.com

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has expanded its Global Delivery Network with the opening of a delivery center in Monterrey, Mexico, strengthening the systems integration and outsourcing capabilities it provides to clients in North America.

Sharing the same methodologies, tools and architectures that Accenture uses across its Global Delivery Network, professionals at the delivery center in Monterrey work with those in other Accenture delivery centers around the world to provide systems integration, application development and maintenance, testing, and technology consulting services to clients across many industries.

The delivery center in Monterrey supports a variety of technologies and technology platforms, including JAVA/J2EE, Microsoft.Net, mainframe, SAP and Oracle. It is Accenture’s second delivery center in Mexico, joining one in Mexico City, which opened in 2004. The delivery center in Mexico City, which is also part of Accenture’s Global Delivery Network, provides application outsourcing and systems integration services to clients globally.

With the addition of the delivery center in Monterrey, Accenture now has six delivery centers across Central and South America — with two centers each in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina — bringing the total number of delivery centers in Accenture’s Global Delivery Network to 51.

“The ability to serve the needs of our clients using a global capability is a key feature of Accenture’s global sourcing approach,” said Keith Haviland, senior managing director, Delivery Centre Network for Technology. “We bring together the right mix of people, skills and common standards to provide our clients with price-competitive and cost-effective solutions and services. Our global network offers the flexibility of multiple locations for the integrated delivery of services to clients.”

The Accenture Global Delivery Network comprises 76,000 professionals at more than 50 delivery centers worldwide. By applying a systematic approach to creating and capturing proven, repeatable processes, methodologies, tools and architectures, professionals in the Accenture Global Delivery Network enable client teams to deliver customized services and solutions in less time than would be required to develop them independently.

Source: manilastandardtoday.com

Bacnotan Consolidated Industries Inc. plans to venture into business process outsourcing this year to take advantage of the rapidly growing sector.

Bacnotan chief executive Ramon del Rosario Jr. told reporters yesterday following the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting that the company was especially interested in a BPO business that would offer financial, engineering and animation services.

Del Rosario said the company was currently developing a strategy on how to enter the BPO industry. He said Bacnotan could either put up its own BPO facility or acquire existing companies.

“We see BPO as an industry with a bright future. We hope to get into the BPO sector within the year,” Del Rosario said.

He said Bacnotan’s entry into the BPO sector would also complement the company’s existing businesses.

“It’s the type of operations that blend itself to our type of skills and strengths. Plus, it is also a good mechanism employment for Filipinos,” Del Rosario said.

Bacnotan is primarily involved in investment holdings, galvanized and pre-painted iron sheets manufacturing, education, real estate development and real and personal property investment.

Its principal subsidiaries are Atlas Holdings Corp., Union Galvasteel Corp., Pamantasan ng Araullo Inc., Cagayan de Oro College Inc., Bacnotan Industrial Park Corp., P&S Holdings Corp. and Asian Plaza Inc.

Subsidiaries and affiliates include Phinma Property Holdings Corp., Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp., Luzon Bag Corp., AB Capital and Investment Corp. and Asian Coal Corp.

In 2007, the company reported a net income of P330 million, slightly lower than P336 million in 2006, while revenues grew to P2.79 billion, up from a year-ago level of P2.65 billion.

The company said it remained bullish in 2008 despite the market uncertainties. It said it planned to evaluate opportunities in oil exploration and the privatization of the power sector.

Through its newly formed subsidiary, Trans Asia Gold and Mineral Corp., Bacnotan also plans to pursue opportunities in the mining sector. Jenniffer B. Austria

Source: biz.thestar.com.my

Information technology (IT) solutions provider HeiTech Padu Bhd hopes its new tier IV data centre will attract more customers from the banking and financial institutions as well as increase its domestic share of the IT outsourcing services market.

Chief financial officer and senior vice-president of group finance services division Abdul Halim Md Lassim said the company was targeting 20% growth in the local market for IT outsourcing services this year.
The International Data Corp in a report in 2007 forecast the demand for data centre services in Malaysia to be worth more than US$150mil annually and grow steadily at 15% compounded annual growth rate until 2011.
“We believe that this new data centre would help us to gain a substantial market share in the banking and financial segment where business data management, such as data loss, system hacking and information leak, is crucial,” he told a media briefing yesterday.

Unlike many other IT solutions providers in Malaysia, HeiTech offered a complete end-to-end business solution, including business continuity and managed network solutions, on top of fundamental managed data centre solution, said Halim.

The new data centre provides full suite technology services that range from managed data centre, web-hosting services, managed network, disaster recovery, managed security and desktop solutions and consultancy services.

Located on a 2.13-acre site, the investment cost for the five-storey data centre in Bukit Jelutong of RM40mil was funded by internal funds and bank borrowings.

Halim said the group, which currently has a presence in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, planned to expand its export markets to the Middle East, North Africa as well as the Asia-Pacific region.

Currently, HeiTech has about 80 customers worldwide, of which 40% are from the government sector.
However, the public sector was its main source of income, contributing 70% to revenue, Halim noted.

The HeiTech group registered a net profit of RM15.3mil on revenue of RM424mil for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2007, while its net cash stood at RM50mil with net gearing at 40%.