Beijing November 17, 2008 — Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), (BSE: TCS.BO, NSE: TCS.NS) a leading IT services, business solutions and outsourcing organization, today announced the inauguration of its latest Global Delivery Center in Tianjin. The 300 seat delivery center at Tianjin is TCS China’s fourth global delivery center in China after Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

The Tianjin center will support local business opportunities as well as Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) opportunities for the Japanese, US and European market. This is in line with Tianjin’s ambition to become a world class hub for global BPO operations.

TCS also announced that it had established its first office in Shenzhen targeting the boomi ng South China market to tap local, regional and global business opportunities.

Girija Pande , Executive Vice President and Head, Asia Pacific Operations, Tata Consultancy Services said, “The Tianjin and Shenzhen facilities are strategic investments to strengthen our information technology infrastructure in order to leverage the local talent pool. These facilities will help us service the vibrant local market and support our international operations in Japan, US and Europe. This also reiterates our long term commitment to developing China as a strategic location in our off shoring and outsourcing value proposition.” He added “The Tianjin delivery center is an integral part of our Global Network Delivery Model™ which includes large delivery centers in India, Latin America, North America, Europe, all of them providing a quality of service and a certainty of outcome that our customers have come to expect from TCS.”

TCS continues to hire talented engineers and IT professionals from the region and its universities, strengthening its existing base of over 1,300 employees in China. The Tianjin facility will also serve as a extended Center of Excellence for Microsoft, Oracle and SAP to meet the unique technology needs of the customers. TCS has established Oracle and SAP center of excellence in Hangzhou and Shanghai

With its first branch established in China back in July 2002, TCS was the first Indian IT company to begin operations in China. Since then TCS has continued to pursue opportunities in the China market and has integrated itself into China’s development. TCS China can offer a unique value proposition of near shore, multilingual IT services delivery & quality to Manufacturing, Telecom, BFSI, Transportation and Retail organizations in China.

TCS provides best in class IT services to 30 large customers from financial sector, manufacturing, telecommunications, and government sectors in China. TCS operations based in the Hangzhou Binjiang Hi-Tech Industry Development Zone have been awarded the 2007 Hangzhou Best HR Award for its excellence in HR practices and Best Performing Company Award by the District Personnel Bureau of the Hangzhou Hi-tech Industry Development Zone.

Source: TCS

Washington: As many as 180,000 employees in IT and related areas will become jobless this year if the layoff announcements by companies are to maintain the current pace.

“At the current pace, the year-end total could reach 180,000, which would be the largest annual total since 2003, when technology firms announced 228,325 job cuts,” says a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based global consulting firm which tracks job-cut announcements.

Telecommunications, electronics and computer industry companies had cut 140,422 jobs through October 31 this year, says the report, adding that 69,654 tech-sector jobs had been cut in the third quarter of the year alone. The report did not include major layoffs announced since October 31 such as the 5,000 to 6,000 job cuts at Sun Microsystems.

“The tech sector is simply the latest victim in this downturn that began last year with the collapse of the housing market, and quickly spread to the financial markets,” chief executive John Challenger said in a statement. “Businesses and consumers have slashed their spending and no industry is immune,” he added.

The 180,000 job cuts in the tech sector would be the most since 2003 but would still be far fewer than the 695,581 jobs lost in 2001, with the bursting of the dot-com bubble. In 2007, a total of 107,295 tech-sector jobs were cut.

Wipro Technologies, the technology services arm of the Wipro Ltd, and Oracle have launched a innovative solutions lab (OZONE) at Wipro’s Electronic City facility in Bangalore.

Services provided at the OZONE will help Wipro and Oracle customers to define their IT roadmaps, Wipro said in a release. The lab will help customers test the adoption of Oracle’s Application Integration Architecture (AIA), as well as Oracle Fusion Middleware and other industry applications.

The facility will be used to co-develop solutions across specific industry processes in human capital management and customer relationship management, Wipro said. The solutions being currently developed in the lab include process integration packs (PIPs) built on the Oracle AIA for the communications industry which are being co-developed and jointly marketed by Oracle and Wipro.

Sangita Singh, senior vice president, Wipro Technologies said in a statement that the move would infuse co-innovation in the Oracle ecosystem. “We are sure that such (a) collaboration with Oracle will go a long way in helping our customers derive maximum potential from their current and planned IT investments,” she added.

The US financial meltdown has finally managed to do what the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector has been trying to do for years on end — reduce the attrition rate of employees by 5-15 percentage points. BPOs that were coping with 30-40 per cent employee turnover are now reporting numbers between 20 per cent and 30 per cent.

Industry insiders as well as sector experts said that companies are unlikely to miss this opportunity to rationalise bloated boom-time salaries. “Companies are aiming to go back to the cost levels of 2005 and 2006. So, we will see an across the board reduction in salaries,” said KPMG Head (people and change advisory) Ganesh Shermon.

Genpact, the largest BPO in the country, reported attrition rate of 26 per cent for the nine months ended September 30, 2008, down from 30 per cent in the same quarter of 2007. 24×7 Customer said the drop in attrition has been 10 percentage points this month. The company’s annualised attrition rate is 38 per cent.

For Satyam BPO, the month-on-month attrition has come down by approximately 15 percentage points. Healthcare BPO Cbay Systems has seen a drop of 10 percentage points in the last few months. And Nasdaq-listed Syntel has seen a 4-5 percentage point drop.

BPOs, on their part, said this had less to do with the economic meltdown and more with the human resources development practices they have put in place. But analysts said that this has happened because of the global economic uncertainty — employees are choosing to stay put on their jobs than risk new ones.

Companies said they had not seen any contraction in the demand for their services and they will keep on hiring people in large numbers. Cbay Systems, for instance, plans to increase its headcount by 10,000 in the next 18 months. “Satyam BPO has not witnessed any diminishing of demand from our existing customers,” added Satyam BPO Global Head (human resources) Naresh Jhangiani.

What is certain is that salaries in the sector will soon get rationalised. “We believe there is an opportunity for salary rationalisation. We are looking at not only the entry level but the middle and senior levels as well. We might see a drop of 5 per cent in salary levels in the coming few months,” said Syntel Global Head (human resources) Srikanth Karra.

“Going ahead, salary increases will be on the basis of productivity. While the fixed salary should remain the same, the variable pay will see changes,” Cbay Systems Chairman and CEO Raman Kumar said. “At the middle- and top-management level, things had gone a bit haywire and this period will bring the required balance.”

India’s second largest software and services exporter Infosys Technologies is keen on acquisitions in Europe and Japan and in the areas of consulting, SAP implementation and BPO. Senior officials of the company said that they would be comfortable with a deal size of $600-700 million (around Rs 2,930-3,420 crore).

“More than the price and valuation of the company, its profile is important and it should help in our growth. Besides, we will continue with our expansion plans. We are committed to regions like China, Mexico and Eastern Europe,” said Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO, Infosys at the India Economic Summit being held in New Delhi.

The company’s December quarter revenue will see an adverse impact due to the rise of dollar against other currencies. “Definitely, currency movements will have an impact but it is difficult to say what exactly it is,” said Kris. About 40 per cent of the company’s revenue comes from non-US markets.

During its second quarter results ended September 30, 2008, Infosys management revised its full-year dollar guidance down to 13.1 to 15.2 per cent — perhaps its lowest revenue growth since inception — from 19-20 per cent. It also cut earnings per share to $2.24 from $2.32-$2.36 projected in July.

Kris said that while there were indications that IT budgets in 2009 would be lower than this year, the offshoring component will be higher.

Despite these conditions, the company is on track to add 25,000 employees in the current fiscal. “We have not revised our salaries downwards. The utilisation has come down and the bench is higher but that is alright. We are taking this opportunity to train employees and we are increasing the R&D spend,” added Kris.

As for cost cutting, the company didn’t share the internal targets but cuts can happen in discretionary spending like travel and entertainment.

The global financial crisis has hit the subcontinent hard–the wealthiest Indians are worth 60% less than a year ago.

These are painful times for India’s richest as the ongoing global turmoil drastically reshapes their fortunes. The country’s once soaring stock market fell 48% in the 12 months, the rupee depreciated 24% against the dollar and gross domestic product growth is expected to slow down to 7.5%, partly owing to double-digit inflation.

All of this conspired to knock 60% off the combined fortunes of the nation’s 40 wealthiest. Their total net worth fell $212 billion, to $139 billion, down from $351 billion a year ago

Last year’s No. 1, U.K. resident Lakshmi Mittal, dropped $30.5 billion amid plunging steel prices, but he slips only a bit, to No. 2. Mukesh Ambani, who oversees petrochemicals giant Reliance Industries, grabs the top spot for the first time, despite losing $28.2 billion in the past year. His estranged brother, Anil, ranked third, is the biggest dollar loser, down $32.5 billion.

Others were nearly wiped out entirely. India’s wind power man Tulsi Tanti and his brothers lost 91% of their fortune, amid reports about the poor quality of Suzlon’s wind blades. Real estate fortunes were among those hit the hardest. K.P.Singh lost $27.2 billion since we last published our listing but is down an astonishing $39 billion since his DLF stock peaked in January. Property tycoon Ramesh Chandra’s net worth dropped 91% to $1 billion. His Unitech lost half its market capitalization in one day last month.

Thirty-three of the 34 tycoons who returned to our ranking of India’s richest are at least 20% poorer than they were a year ago. Only one fortune from last year’s ranks increased, that of brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, who sold their 34% stake in generic drug firm Ranbaxy Laboratories to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo at a hefty premium to its current stock price. They added $550 million to their combined wealth.

Others with pharmaceuticals fortunes outperformed the market, but thanks to a sliding rupee, their net worth fell too. Dilip Shanghvi of SunPharma, India’s most valuable drug maker, was poorer by $800 million, despite an increase in his net worth in rupees.

Six people dropped off our list altogether after losing a collective $7.9 billion. They included flamboyant liquor and airlines tycoon Vijay Mallya, whose Kingfisher Airlines (other-otc: KNGFY.PK - news - people ) is racking up losses, and Gautam Thapar, whose Ballarpur Industries is India’s largest paper maker. Taking their places are four newcomers, including Micky Jagtiani, who oversees a retailing empire in the Middle East , and Hemant Shah, son of a Bollywood film producer, who made his fortune in construction.

Returning to the list after a one-year absence are Yusuf Hamied, head of generics producer Cipla, and Brijmohan Lall Munjal, patriarch of Hero Group, which makes motorcycles and bicycles.

Some more sobering statistics: While all 40 tycoons were billionaires last year, only 27 now have 10-figure fortunes, nine fewer than in 2006.

These net worths are snapshots of wealth taken on Nov. 3, when we locked in market prices and exchange rates . Had we locked in just a week earlier, the losses would have been still greater, as the nation’s main index gained 21% in the days leading up to our list publication.

Privately held companies were valued by comparing them to similar public companies. Indian nonresidents like Lakshmi Mittal were included as long as they still hold Indian citizenship. This ranking, unlike the Forbes billionaires list, includes family fortunes.

AMD has announced the availability of Opteron processors on the 45-nm node with the launch of “Shanghai,” its first 45-nm server processor.

The processor helps reduce complexities with innovations that offer superior virtualization performance and increased performance-per-watt, the company said.

Flawless execution in bringing the 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor to market early results in new performance leadership on x86 servers,” said Dasaradha Gude, Managing Director, Computing, AMD India. “In concert with our OEM and solution provider partners, AMD is addressing the need for enterprises to focus on their bottom line while giving them the innovations they need to build for the future. This enhanced AMD Opteron processor represents the most dramatic performance and performance-per-watt increases for AMD products since the introduction of the world’s first x86 dual-core processors by AMD nearly four years ago.”

The processor offers a balanced and scalable solution to support today’s increasingly heterogeneous computing environments. Through improvements to AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture and innovative AMD-Virtualization (AMD-V) technology, the new processor delivers faster world switch time, which enhances virtual machine efficiency.

Acer has set a new industry benchmark by being the first to make their customer support service available 7 days a week.

Now customers, who are required to visit the Acer service centers, can go in at their convenience on any day of the week from 9:00am to 6:00pm. Sudipto Ghosh, Chief Customer Support Officer, Acer India, said, “Our goal at Acer customer support is to figure out ways to ensure that Acer makes life easy, and help our customers get the maximum value from their Acer product. This initiative is designed to make it easier for customers to get their products serviced with minimum effort and inconvenience”.

Acer has taken customer care a step ahead by launching SMS updates on the status of customers’ products being serviced, thereby ensuring that customers are aware of the progress on their products.

This new initiative has been well received by the Acer service partner network across the country who see this as a key differentiator for Acer from competition and of great value to the consumer.

Offering unique customer value, this initiative is a first of its kind in the PC market and has been launched across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mangalore, and Mysore.

IBM has announced the launch of two IBM System x servers featuring new six-core processor technology from Intel. The new servers offer power-efficiency, performance and virtualization capabilities for today’s most demanding datacenters.

Commenting on the launch Ajay Mittal, Country Manager -System x, IBM India/South Asia.said, “IBM is addressing the performance needs of our clients and the growing demand for scale up x86 servers. The new System x servers provide the innovation our x86 clients have come to expect, with better performance and power usage than our competitors’ offerings.”

The new servers, System x3950 M2 and System x3850 M2, allow clients to take full advantage of virtualization on the system with mainframe-like reliability and high efficiency power supplies. With Systems x3850 M2, users can support a large number of demanding business applications like those for ERP and database on a single server. It offers flexible scalability that allows clients to easily expand their system from 4-sockets to 16.

The IBM System x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 will be available with Intel Xeon 7400 processors in November at an approximate price of US$ 10,389 and US$ 13,389 respectively.

Microsoft has announced the availability of Microsoft Dynamics NAV Business Essentials (BE). This ERP solution is packaged and priced specially for the growing businesses in India .

Priced at sub Rs. 3 Lacs by its partners including license and implementation this will allow growing businesses to access a basic set of ERP functionalities including financials, distribution and sales management – without huge capital investments. Further, being a ready to use solution, it can be deployed in about 2 -3 weeks timeframe.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV BE helps to reduce the implementation cycle time with low investment enabling small customers to look at an ERP solution from day one. It allows businesses currently using financial accounting package to adopt integrated business management (ERP) solution including sales, purchase and inventory management etc. as they grow their business.

Choosing the right business management solution is critical for 3 million odd growing businesses in India and it also means balancing their short- and long-term business goals with their enterprise resources.