India’s Infosys: herald of bad news?
In January, unexpectedly positive results from Infosys sent the company’s stock soaring and set the tone for a good run of quarterly earnings for India’s information technology sector.
One quarter later and Infosys has kicked off the full fiscal year earnings season with news that has sent its share price plunging right back to where it used to be. Is this, once again, a sign of what’s to come? Continue reading »
India’s IT industry turns east
Despite the threat of fierce protectionism, challenging cultural barriers and major linguistic hurdles, the giants of Indian IT are looking to break into China’s previously closed software and outsourcing industry. Continue reading »
The great outsourcing story used to be from Europe to India (IT) and China (manufacturing). But now southeast Asian countries are the preferred destination, and not just for western companies. India and China are outsourcing to their Asean neighbours too.
That’s according to Adecco, the world’s largest provider of HR services, which says its clients increasingly want to hire in Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Continue reading »
Bulgaria: looking to boost the back office
The outsourcing sector may not be particularly glamorous – and the words “contact centre” may be loaded with associations of irritating unsolicited telephone calls – but it’s certainly a big earner for many emerging markets. India and the Philippines are two of the better-known outsourcing destinations.
Some eastern European countries have also found outsourcing niches for themselves, capitalising on their location, low overheads and a workforce of technically-able graduates. The business process outsourcing sector has become something of a success story for Bulgaria, where it employs around 15,000 people and generates revenues of €200m, according to the official Invest Bulgaria Agency. Continue reading »
Polish outsourcing: under threat
The nondescript four and five-storey office buildings springing up on the outskirts of many Polish cities house one of the country’s biggest economic success stories – thousands of office workers hunched in front of computer terminals providing accounting, IT, human resources and other back office functions for a growing number of international companies.
But the boom – which has created about 90,000 jobs and made Poland the third most attractive back office location in the world after India and China, according to the Hackett Group consultancy – is in danger of coming to a rapid close. Continue reading »
Tapping Ukraine’s IT potential
By Graham Stack of of business new europe (bne)
Ukraine’s IT outsourcing sector has exploded over the last 10 years to top $1bn in 2011, capitalising on the strong science schools inherited from the Soviet Union.
Looking to the future, the sector has the potential to become a real force for Ukraine’s modernisation if it can meet some challenges. Continue reading »
Cognizant: Indian IT’s new number two
In a widely expected move, Cognizant Technology Solutions – which is based in the US but operates mostly out of India – overtook Infosys as the IT industry’s second-biggest company by revenues, according to results for the quarter ended in June.
Analysts said such expectation-beating numbers have come to be, well, expected from Cognizant – to such an extent that when it merely meets expectations its stock falters – so there were few surprises contained in the results. Continue reading »
Wipro: more gloom for India tech
The podium can be an uncomfortable place.
Wipro, India’s third-largest IT company by market cap, followed rival Infosys in predicting gloom for the country’s outsourcing industry on Tuesday when it forecast muted revenue growth in the coming quarter. Continue reading »
G4S: emerging markets expansion will survive Olympics fiasco
G4S took a heavy blow in the UK this week, losing a £50m contract following its botching of Olympic security. With its reputation tarnished, worse may follow. However, even in the unlikely event that the UK government restricts the firm’s access to its proliferating outsourcing opportunities, G4S is much more than a UK company. Continue reading »
TCS continues dominance of Indian IT
India’s top IT company, Tata Consultancy Services, continued its dominance with expectation-beating quarterly results announced Thursday.
The company reported a 38 per cent rise in net profit for the quarter ending in June, to Rs32.81bn ($586.6m), on revenues of Rs148.69bn ($2.66bn), propelled by a weaker rupee, cost-conscious western companies’ increased need for outsourcing, and its broad portfolio of services. Continue reading »
Infosys: caution proves costly for investors
I
nfosys’ caution seems to have gotten the better of them again. Shares in the Indian company plunged as much as 9.4 per cent Thursday morning after the company released its results for the quarter that ended in June.
It was a familiar storyline for India’s second-largest IT company: it released results that met market expectations, but downgraded its dollar-revenue forecast for the fiscal year that ends in March 2013, and markets didn’t like it. Continue reading »
Infosys beats expectations; shares sink
Shares in Infosys, India’s second-largest software maker, fell sharply on Friday after it gave weak guidance for the coming year. The shares lost as much as 11 per cent in early trading – despite the fact that company profits in the last quarter beat expectations. Continue reading »
Video: Indian IT – growing pains
IT outsourcing is one of India’s greatest economic successes. But its expansion has created political tensions with the developed world, not least over jobs. R. Chandrasekaran, chief executive of Cognizant, tells the FT’s James Crabtree that the future lies in innovation.
Indian IT targets high-end outsourcing
Some leading characters in India’s success story have been showing signs of strain recently. Despite better-than-expected results, IT titans like Infosys were forced to cut forecasts for the fiscal year, prompting investors to sell.
Industry members nevertheless remain confident the sector can sustain its rapid growth – having nearly doubled its revenue to $88bn in the five years to 2011 - in spite of the global economic slowdown and increased competition in the outsourcing sector from other emerging markets like the Philippines. Continue reading »
Sitel’s Belgrade call centre
The room full of cubicles at Sitel’s new call centre may look sterile at first glance. Yet it buzzes with conversations conducted in five languages as around 20 newly-hired customer care agents handle calls from seven European countries. Continue reading »
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