Source:www.business-standard.com

Indian IT firms are sharpening their focus on the growing domestic retail sector and revenue projections suggest this is a good move. IT revenues from the retail segment were around Rs 1,100 crore in 2006, according to Springboard Research. The figure is expected to rise to over Rs 4,600 crore by 2010 — a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 44 per cent.

Retail has been one of the largest growth sectors for all the top IT firms. For instance, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys Technologies, Wipro Technologies and Satyam Computer Services saw their retail business grow by 33.6, 45.3, 38.5 and 117 per cent respectively on a year-on-year basis. The growth was much more faster than that in their BFSI segment.

This has prompted them to look at India too, and with much success. Rajesh Jain, executive director, KPMG, says: “It is still early days to comment on the size of the opportunity, but the deal sizes in this vertical are increasing and currently range between Rs 85 crore and Rs 860 crore.”

A case in point is that of Wipro Infotech. The company recently won a five-year outsourcing contract from Spencer Retail, an RPG group company. Early this year, it also bagged an outsourcing deal from Pantaloon worth over Rs 200 crore ($50 million).

“Indian retail players are focusing on quick expansion and larger footprint across the country. Hence they are looking for a partner who can take care of their IT requirements or be a part of expansion by taking care of IT infrastructure, applications and store rollouts. We are partnering with some of the retail players already and we are in talks with many more companies for similar rollouts,” says Anand Sankaran, chief executive, Wipro Infotech.

Prateek Pal, the head of retail practice, notes that TCS went with “live solutions” for outlets like Subhiksha, Birla and Madura Coats. The strategy is to propose enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for tier-I firms to begin with. This is followed by proposals for “total outsourcing of the IT infrastructure and mobility solutions”.

The need for embracing technology stems from the fact that the retail sector works on very thin margins. IT helps in keeping the tap of the supply and management. “Retail and consumer product goods (CPG) is an extremely dynamic and competitive industry, operating on razor-thin margins. The industry faces new business challenges everyday in the form of intense pricing competition, increasing margin pressures, shortening product life cycles and optimised customer spend across multi-channels,” explains Sidhartha Chowdhury, associate vice-president, HCL Technologies.

“Retail is a huge market opportunity for the Indian IT firms. But the real growth will come from organised retail, which is still a small percentage of the overall retail sector in India. The other aspect is that IT players will have to introduce customisation according to local requirements,” says Ravi Shekar Pandey, manager syndication research, Springboard Research.

Indian IT firms are launching customised solutions for the retail segment rather than giving them box solutions. Earlier this year, Wipro also launched The Intelligent NextGen Associate (TINA), a retail automation platform. TINA is a platform, on which customer interaction applications can be deployed that use speech, touch and motion. Not to be left behind, the second-largest IT firm, Infosys Technologies, launched ShoppingTrip360. The patent pending technology will help retailers to achieve visibility into in-store activity.

And it’s just not the top IT firms that are eyeing the retail segment. Firms providing niche services and products are also gearing up. Chennai-based Gemini Traze, a manufacturer of radio frequency identification (RFID) readers and antennas, is optimistic that the booming retail sector would fuel demand for its RFID tags. The company is optimistic that in the next 12 months the retail sector will contribute 15 per cent to its revenues.

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

The outsourcing industry has given impetus to inflow of foreign exchange and creating job opportunities in India. The financial services sector has emerged as a key domain for outsourcing.

Work Flow and Growth Prospects

Banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) comprise 38 per cent of the outsourcing industry in India (worth $47.8 billion in 2007). Most of the work outsourced comes from the US followed by Europe.

According to a report by Mckinsey and Nasscom, India has the potential to process 30 per cent of the banking transactions in the US by the year 2010. Outsourcing by the BFSI to India is expected to grow at an annualised rate of 30 - 35 per cent.

Outsourced services from the BFSI domain include customer support, software and solutions required for core banking, various banking processes like mortgage loan processing, application processing, verifications etc, and other services like market analysis, financial statement analysis etc.

The Indian Edge

While the major driver of the outsourcing wave is the cost advantage India enjoys in terms of employee cost, comparatively lower rentals for space etc., western outsourcers opt for India for various other reasons like better management, focus on core areas where they specialise, quality, service etc. According to Ramesh Mengawade, CEO and Chairman of Opus Software Solutions, a third party processor for credit, debit and prepaid cards, “outsourcing in card processing enables our clients flexibility and time to market advantages for introducing new features and enhanced security due to stringent regulatory compliance.”

Source: in.reuters.com

ITC Ltd , India’s top cigarette firm, said on Tuesday its information technology arm had acquired U.S-based technology company Pyxis Solutions for about $25 million to boost growth.

ITC Infotech provides software and back-office outsourcing services to clients in industries from banking through to entertainment and it said the Pyxis buy would boost its activities in the United States.

“It adds to our capabilities and we would be able to leverage this to get new business, acquire new customers also grow engagements with existing customers,” Sanjiv Puri, managing director of ITC Infotech, told Reuters in a phone interview.

Pyxis, which has about 100 staff, provides information technology solutions to banking, financial services and insurance companies in the United States to improve quality, save costs and boost data security.

“We certainly expect it to help us accelerate growth,” Puri said, without giving details. “Their impressive roster of customers will further strengthen our presence in the U.S.”

Indian software services firms are increasingly looking to acquire firms in overseas markets to diversify international presence and acquire new customers and technology skills.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

NEW DELHI: India’s booming outsourcing industry may be hit due to the slowdown of the US economy, but not for long since the recession itself may not last more than two-three years, says Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.

“A lot of our exports go actually to America, both commodity export but even more importantly our services they import. And these have slackened,” Sen, who was in India to deliver a lecture in parliament, said in an interview.

“There are some indications, clear indications, that the American growth-slack would hit India too. And, you know, our growth rate has come down a bit, and we have to see how much further it comes down,” he said.

“On the other hand, we are not thoroughly dependent on it. We should try to see what we can do to overcome that,” Sen told senior journalist Kalyani Shankar in the interview to All India Radio.

He said while there was nothing wrong in inter-country links in an increasingly globalising world, India had to make sure that the ill-effects of slackening growth in America - or elsewhere - are reduced.

But how long would the US recession last? “I have never been a crystal gazer. Well, I think, it goes away in less than two or three years. I will be very surprised if it goes on for more than four-five years.”

Sen also spoke at length about India’s growth rate, which has averaged around nine percent in recent years and the impact that a democratic system can have on making it sustainable and inclusive.

“If you want to make democracy work, you have to make sure that not only the government but the opposition also concentrates on identified major issues,” said the Nobel laureate.

“The growth is a non-thought. Growth is not a formula,” he said, and added that a democracy needed collaborations to make people and the unions responsible, while also getting them to deliver health, education and other services better.

He said the pressures of a democracy often come from the events of the day like hiking fuel prices or the India-US nuclear pact and to what extent they crowd out solving problems like under-nourishment or lack of schooling and medical care.

“So the issue of democracy is quite central to issue of growth,” he said, while emphasising that both the government and the opposition parties had to examine if they were harming the cause of removing some long-standing ills in society.

He said a growth of 6-9 per cent in India had seen a growth of 8-12 per cent in the incomes of state-run companies. “This puts a lot of money in government hand. So the question is what its priority should be.”

Sen also said that growth must be widely shared, but that depended on adequate employment, the educational background of the masses and their health so that they could take up the jobs and do the rigours that is needed.

“All these relate to each other. This is one way of increasing the sharing of growth. The other way is growth generates income. In fact, it generates more than proportionate income for the public sector, for the government revenue.”

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

NEW DELHI: Nurses in India have never had it so good. After being wooed by hospitals in the US and Gulf, now the Indian IT/ITes sector is opening their gates to these Florence Nightingales. Outsourcing firms in the healthcare and life sciences and insurance space have started recruiting nurses and para medics to do jobs that require these specializations.

Although, a recent phenomenon, the trend started a few months back as BPO firms started providing end-to-end services to health insurance, pharma, medical devices and healthcare industries in the West. According to some estimates the total healthcare outsourcing services market is close to $30 billion today and is expected to grow at 10% over the next two-three years.

While companies started hiring nurses one year ago, no official marketing estimates on recruitment is available yet, say experts. Patni BPO for example, started recruiting nurses seven months back to handle long term care (LTC) management practice on behalf of insurance companies to manage medical care of elderly citizens in its Noida centre. As Sanjiv Kapur, Senior VP and Head Patni BPO, explains, “Nurses are involved in reviewing medical records, assessing risks, ensuring if medical check-ups are done on time. They also assist in timely administration of drugs, counselling and setting up physician appointments.”

The nurse also plays an important role in providing professional long-term care to the senior citizens. “Nurses in the US visit elderly patients to analyse their lifestyle and based on this they do a medical assessment. The assessment sheets are then sent to teams in India. Nurses here analyse and transcribe the details as per guidelines of the insurance company. The report is then sent back. Future diagnosis is done based on the assessment,” says Kapur.

“We handle adverse event reporting of drugs, product complains and questions, etc, for a leading US-based healthcare player servicing nearly 70 million customers,” says Ashutosh Vaidya, Head, Wipro BPO.