Source: www.business-standard.com

The Rs 1,200 crore animation industry in India is set to grow to Rs 4,200 crore by 2009 with its revenues projected to double up to almost $1.5 billion by 2010.

“The Indian animation market is only one per cent of the global market of the $1,125 billion but growth is expected to be around 35 per cent in the next few years. India is fast emerging as a destination for outsourcing assignments from international studios like Walt Disney Pictures and Cartoon Network.” Prime Focus, Vice-President, Aijaz Rashid said at ‘MAAC SRIJAN 2008,’ a seminar for students and professionals seeking a career in the animation industry.

“India will become the global headquarters of animation world. At present, India has a Ferrari by the way of technology, software and amenities. What we need now is a Michael Schumacher to help us win the race. We need the artist, imagination and content to help us to lead the industry,” Rashid said.

Animation in India is currently riding on two key factors-a large base of highly skilled labour and low production cost,” Rhythm & Hues, Manager, Subhojit Sarkar said.

India definitely has advantages over other players. In that there are little government regulations so the industry is free of complexities.

Potential exists and it must be borne in mind that training, big investments and providing original and compelling content will be critical to growth, he added.

Source: www.tradingmarkets.com

Convergys, a global company involved in relationship management, announced that TrainingOutsourcing.com has selected Convergys as one of the “Top 20 Companies in the Training Outsourcing Industry” for the fifth consecutive year.

According to company officials, TrainingOutsourcing.com named Convergys to its fifth annual “Top 20″ list among companies specializing in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) in order to “create a more efficient marketplace for learning.”

“We are highly honored once again to be named as one of the twenty companies in this select industry group,” said Marianne Langlois, Convergys’ Vice President, Learning Solutions. “This acknowledgment further demonstrates Convergys’ global leadership in relationship management. Our focus in providing our clients with learning solutions that improve the quality and effectiveness of their business optimizes how our clients interact with their customers and employees to drive more value from those relationships. The outcome is improved business results with their customers and increased engagement and impactful talent management for their workforce.”

Convergys noted TrainingOutsourcing.com selected the company as one of the “Top 20 Companies in the Training Outsourcing Industry” after evaluating over 400 companies. This selection was based on their experience in managing multi-year training business process outsourcing (BPO) engagements, recognition as a outsourcing service provider (OSP), capability to deliver multiple BPO training services, as well as the impact on the training BPO industry.

Source: in.reuters.com

BANGALORE, July 25 (Reuters) - Infosys Technologies (INFY.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) plans to cut dependence on the United States to about 40 percent from more than 60 percent now, its chief executive said, as a slowdown in the world’s largest economy hits outsourcing deals.

Infosys, which got 63 percent of its revenue from the United States in the June quarter, planned to boost contribution from Europe to 40 percent from 27 percent, while other markets would account for the remaining 20 percent, CEO S. Gopalakrishnan said.

“We will continuously evolve and change,” Gopalakrishnan told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

“It’s also driven by realization that emerging markets are contributing more to the global GDP growth, that’s where the growth is faster.” He declined to set a time-frame for this, saying: “It’s not that you need to do it tomorrow, that you have hit a wall.”

Earlier this month, Infosys, India’s second-largest software services exporter, beat forecasts with a 21 percent rise in quarterly profit but warned of challenging times ahead as its major Western clients battle weakening economies.

Indian outsourcing firms such as Infosys and its bigger rival Tata Consultancy Services (TCS.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) are rapidly expanding to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America to cut their dependence on the United States.

Gopalakrishnan said Nasdaq-listed Infosys (INFY.O: Quote, Profile, Research) was also focusing on markets such as Japan, India, Australia, China, the Middle East, Canada and Latin America due to growing technology spending in these markets.

“These are new growth engines for us. We are investing in those markets and adding sales capacities,” he said. “Some momentum is being built and if it’s sustained over time I think this will have a positive impact on the company.”

Despite mounting turmoil in the global financial industry, Infosys is not seeing downward pressure on prices that it charges its clients, but Gopalakrishnan said it doesn’t expect an increase in billing rates either.

Infosys, which develops applications, designs supply chains and offers back-office services, counts ABN AMRO, Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Philips Electronics (PHG.AS: Quote, Profile, Research) among its more than 560 clients.

Gopalakrishnan, one of the seven founders of Infosys which was set up in 1981, expects the consulting business unit to break even in the current financial year to March 2009, as it taps more customers for this high margin service.

In the last financial year which ended in March, the consulting unit reported a loss of $13 million.

“It is a conscious choice for us to continue to invest in it,” he said. “It is good business… It is a piece that is required if you want to be a full services company.”

Source: www.cxotoday.com

In India, the slowdown has presented the Indian BPOs an opportunity to tap new geographies and user segments within the country; diversifying risks and adding to growth and profitability.

According to Sanjay Mehta, CEO of MAIA Intelligence, “The ongoing rapid expansion of the IT and BPO industries beyond the five metros hinges on the timely creation of basic infrastructure in the tier II and tier III towns and cities of India.”

The other areas where the companies are looking at saving costs include communication (IP Telephony, unified communication), energy (green solutions), recruitment and training processes, reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), etc. This also includes travel and transportation costs where companies are looking at effective collaboration solutions including video, Web and audio.

The BPOs are also looking at the domestic market in recent years. Datamatics, a BPO company has invested in developing its own products and in creating reusable components in its solutions.

According to Brian Lobo, VP of Datamatics, “A more plausible reason is that the domestic user industry has matured to an extent where it can outsource non-core functions to external partners.”

“Focusing on new cities or smaller towns to build delivery centers is one new trend that BPOs are looking for. Nashik for instance has most of what a BPO needs in terms of infrastructure and people, available at far lower rates than cities like Mumbai and Bangalore,” said he.

The outsourcing companies are adopting new cutting costs formulas and techniques to fight competition. They are being extra flexible with pricing, delivery, besides taking a solution-centric approach, building domain expertise in new verticals, improving internal processes, etc.

Ritesh Jayswal, director, (industry solutions) at Avaya said, “IT companies will have to forge partnerships with their customers to create higher value proposition, directly impacting customer’s business priorities.

Springboard estimates the enterprise IT outsourcing is expected to increase by $7.2 billion by 2011. According to the latest NASSCOM figures, domestic IT spending on hardware and software had crossed $8.2 billion in 2006-07 and $11.6 billion in 2007-08. These reports and other reports show that India will continue to be “Outsourcing Capital” of the world.

Source: www.business-standard.com

Legal outsourcing firm UnitedLex today said it will invest over Rs 25 crore for global expansion, with funds being led by Canaan Partners and Helion Venture Partners.

The Gurgaon-based company also plans to open one more delivery centre in Gurgaon around September to further strengthen its global delivery network in legal consulting, analytics and outsourcing solutions, UnitedLex Chief Operating Officer Anup Bhasin said here.

For consolidating its position globally in legal consulting, the company will be hiring over 800 professionals next year taking the headcount to 1,000 by the next year from the current 250 professionals.

The company will also invest over Rs 8 crore in building LexBase, a technology platform for legal industry.

With the present revenue of around $10 million, the company is aiming to exceed $22 million by 2009.

“UnitedLex has a unique team and their customers include over 15 global companies. So we are confident of earning a great business here,” Canaan MD Alok Mittal said on the occasion here.

The company mainly caters to the US market with small footprints in the UK as well. Riding on the back of a fast-growing eDiscovery market in the US, the company’s revenue has been increasing by 5-10 per cent on a month-to-month basis.

EDiscovery is a system in which the paper work is reduced to minimum and most of the work is automated to expedite the legal work.