Monday, January 31, 2005

Xansa to Hire 7000 in India

Silicon India reports UK based IT services company Xansa will expand its workforce by 7000 in India.

"At present we have about 3,000 employed in our outsourcing centers in Pune, Noida and Chennai and the strength will go up to 10,000 in about five years as the Business Process Outsourcing in India is doing extremely well," Cox said.

Read more: Xansa to hike workforce by 7,000 in India

Medium Size Companies Lead HR Outsourcing

Medium-sized companies are set to lead the way in signing HR outsourcing deals during 2005, after a large rise in contracts last year. In 2004, for the first time, 'mid-to-large' businesses - as opposed to 'large to very large' businesses - dominated HR outsourcing, according to analyst firm Datamonitor.

Companies with between 5,000-25,000 employees did more broad-based business processing outsourcing deals including HR functions, according to Datamonitor. In the past, companies with more than 25,000 employees were the ones signing HR outsourcing deals.

Read more: Mid-sized companies to lead outsourcing into the mainstream

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Outsourcing Works For Beauty China

Yahoo Finance reports Beauty China Holdings, a small Hong Kong-based, Singapore-listed cosmetics concern, has quietly doubled its sales and profits in China during the past two years by tapping into a global strategy: outsourcing.

Sam Wong, Beauty China's founder and controlling shareholder, sets the strategy and develops ideas for makeup, packaging and marketing campaigns. He farms out production to a handful of Chinese manufacturers and sells products directly to about 90 independent distributors who get them sold at 700 outlets in China. Beauty China doesn't own any outlets, but as part of its arrangements with distributors, the company can specify how retail displays are designed and decorated.

EDS, Towers Perrin Form Outsourcing Company

Newsday.com reports Electronic Data Systems Corp. has agreed to pay about $420 million to create a personnel-services company with consulting firm Towers Perrin.

The new firm, still unnamed, will sell services in benefits, payroll, recruitment and other areas. Towers Perrin will provide consulting services to clients of the new firm, the companies said. EDS has been trying to expand from its roots as an IT-outsourcer _ running other companies' computers _ into so-called business process outsourcing, in which it runs functions such as payroll, benefits, finance and accounting for clients.

Bryan Doyle, the leader of Lincolnshire, Ill.-based Hewitt's outsourcing business, said he wasn't surprised that EDS would strike a deal with Towers to expand in business-process outsourcing, or BPO. "We see HR BPO as an attractive market," he said. "We know the IT outsourcers are interested because of the growth potential."

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Employees Can Benefit From Outsourcing

Computerworld reports a company's move to outsourcing can sometimes strike fear in employees who see their jobs as endangered, if done right workers may find that the process provides them with an opportunity to advance their careers and hone their skills, according to the findings of a poll out this week.

"There is a lot of confusion surrounding outsourcing, when in fact people often improve their positions and get to work for a specialist operation," said LogicaCMG management consultant Paul Dunn.

"Outsourcing is often confused with offshoring, Dunn said, which involves moving jobs to lower-cost markets such as India, while outsourcing involves a company's decision to move a particular operation or function out-of-house. When companies outsource, European regulations stipulate that affected employees retain the same conditions they had in their previous positions."

Monday, January 10, 2005

New Head of Outsourcing Operations at HP

ZDNet reports Hewlett-Packard has named Steve Smith as its new senior vice president of managed services, a division of HP Services that runs clients' computing infrastructure and elements of their businesses such as human resources. He replaces Uli Holdenried, who took over as managing director of HP Germany.

Russia Outsourcing Challenges

CRM News reports Russia needs new infrastructure. Russia lacks the wealth of basic Internet "backbone" infrastructure already in place in the United States and India; that has kept inexpensive, high-bandwidth Internet capacity out of reach for many.

"The biggest problem," Sukharev said, "is finding skilled workers who not only specialize in theory but in practice. Many still need English-language training." Still, that figure for programmers is growing. In 2004 the number of Russian graduates with master's degrees in computer science or majors in software engineering was 68,126, up 6.9 percent from 2003, according to the Russian State Statistics Committee.

Russia also needs new infrastructure , something on which India has made more headway. Russia lacks the wealth of basic Internet "backbone" infrastructure already in place in the United States and India; that has kept inexpensive, high-bandwidth Internet capacity out of reach for many here, Sukharev says. A T-1 line, or fast, dedicated phone and data line, with high capacity might cost $500 a month in the United States. In Russia, it costs $50,000 a month. "That is something only the Russian government can build," he said.

Friday, January 07, 2005

Offshore Outsourcing Spending Creeps

News.com reports spending on information technology projects farmed out to low-cost places like India should grow by 1 percent this year, according to a report Thursday from investment firm Merrill Lynch.

"The report, based on a December survey of 50 United States-based chief information officers, also found that spending on offshore IT services represents a small but growing chunk of budgets allocated to IT services. In 2004, offshore IT services accounted for 1 percent of the budgets, but CIOs indicated that that figure will increase to 1.4 percent in coming years."

"We expect U.S. companies to increase jobs sent offshore in the next two to three years as they try to drive costs down and improve operating margins," the report said.

"Merrill's survey is the latest data point in an as-yet-incomplete picture about the scope and effect of so-called offshore outsourcing. Comprehensive data about the controversial trend has been lacking, but a $2 million government study is in the works."

Sunday, January 02, 2005

India BPO is Ready for 2005

HindustanTimes.com/UK reports India outsourcing companies and BPO companies are poised for a good year as outsourcing fears subside in the US.

NASSCOM estimated that the industry, including domestic, will see revenues cross $20 billion in 2004-05 with services and software exports growing at 30-32 per cent to record revenues of over $16.3 billion.

The first two quarters of 2004-05 have been extremely good for the top three software exporters - TCS, Wipro and Infosys. Their topline started growing handsomely reminding of the heady days of 1999-2001. In fact, all of them have projected liberal growth for 2004-05 .

With the topline, the number of employees of the IT companies also grew. Many unveiled plans to hire thousands in the coming quarters.