Global-O&O

SOURCE: Press Release
DATE: March 15th, 2010

Accenture  is providing Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. , one of the world’s largest hotel and leisure companies, with a range of information technology (IT) outsourcing services under a multi-year contract worth more than US$200 million.

Under the terms of the contract signed in May 2009, Accenture is providing Starwood with an integrated IT solution, including end-to-end application and infrastructure management. Application outsourcing services include development, testing, maintenance and running of the applications. Infrastructure outsourcing services include server and storage management, data center management, end-user computing, network management, and service desk management.

These services are enabling Starwood to improve the quality and the efficiency of its IT operations. In addition, Starwood IT is better able to focus on driving new innovations into the marketplace to enhance Starwood’s competitive positioning.

Todd Thompson, CIO of Starwood, said, “This program with Accenture is key to the continued transformation of IT at Starwood into a team that is outstanding at execution and delivers initiatives that drive business results. In addition to improving quality and efficiency, we are excited about the ongoing opportunities to work with Accenture to increase and accelerate innovation to our business.”

“Accenture is delighted to have a vital role in the IT transformation at Starwood,” said Umar Riaz, a senior executive in Accenture’s Products practice. “By combining our experience in providing application and infrastructure outsourcing services, along with our deep knowledge of the hospitality industry, we are able to deliver consistent, cost effective and innovative IT solutions to Starwood as they seek to further drive a platform for profitable growth.”

Accenture is delivering the services to Starwood leveraging teams based in the United States and utilizing its Global Delivery Network.

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 176,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$21.58 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2009. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

Learn more about Accenture’s application development services and listen to the podcast or download the pdf to learn more about the costs and complexities of managing multiple application development and maintenance providers.

About Starwood Hotels & Resorts

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with 992 properties in nearly 100 countries and 145,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. Starwood Hotels is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchisor of hotels, resorts and residences with the following internationally renowned brands: St. Regis(R), The Luxury Collection(R), W(R), Westin(R), Le Meridien(R), Sheraton(R), Four Points(R) by Sheraton, and the recently launched Aloft(R), and Element SM. Starwood Hotels also owns Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., one of the premier developers and operators of high quality vacation interval ownership resorts. For more information, please visit www.starwoodhotels.com.

SOURCE: Press Release
DATE: March 11th, 2010

Mahindra Satyam, the brand identity of Satyam Computer Computer Services Ltd. (NYSE:SAY), a leading global consulting and IT services provider has signed a new four year offshore contract with KMD, one of Denmark’s leading IT companies. KMD, which specialises in the public sector, signed a renewed contract with Mahindra Satyam for the next four years worth approximately $48 million ending in December 2013. The new contract is an extension of a previous contract that was due to expire this year which involved the supply of application development, testing and application support services particularly in the area of SAP which is a growing business for the Danish IT company.

The new contract involves stronger partnership and multi-fold increase in business commitment with offshore work conducted in a development centre in Bangalore, India. The scope of application development work covered will primarily include SAP, as well as other technologies such as Mainframe applications, .Net, Java, BizTalk, WebLogic, PL/1, Sharepoint and MQ Series.

According to Lars Monrad-Gylling, CEO of KMD, “We have chosen SAP as a strategic technological platform for our development work and consider it a common cornerstone to enable coherence between systems, global market standards and to offer our customers greater openness and freedom of choice. Mahindra Satyam’s outstanding competencies in this area were a major factor in our decision to extend the contract.”

He added, “The offshoring project with Mahindra Satyam allows KMD to achieve even greater growth in the SAP development area and allows us to offer customers a reduced time to market. We consider Mahindra Satyam among the world leaders in their field and the two companies have already been engaged in a highly successful partnership.

C P Gurnani, CEO of Mahindra Satyam commented, “We view this significant contract award as a great endorsement of the quality of work we have already delivered and a real testament to the success of the partnership that has developed between the two companies. We look forward with anticipation to the next phase of this relationship.”

About Mahindra Satyam

Mahindra Satyam (NYSE: SAY) is a leading global business and information technology services company that leverages deep industry and functional expertise, leading technology practices, and an advanced, global delivery model to help clients transform their highest-value business processes and improve their business performance.

The company’s professionals excel in enterprise solutions, supply chain management, client relationship management, business intelligence, business process quality, engineering and product lifecycle management, and infrastructure services, among other key capabilities.

Mahindra Satyam is part of the $6.3 billion Mahindra Group, a global industrial federation of companies and one of the top 10 industrial firms based in India. The Group’s interests span financial services, automotive products, trade, retail and logistics, information technology and infrastructure development.

Mahindra Satyam’s development and delivery centers in the US, Canada, Brazil, the UK, Hungary, Egypt, UAE, India, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia serve numerous clients, including many Fortune 500 organizations. For more information, see www.mahindrasatyam.com, Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mahindra_satyam

About KMD:

KMD is among the largest Danish-based IT companies and has more than 35 years experience in development, operation and maintenance of some of Denmark’s largest IT systems. KMD develops and provides IT solutions for the local authority, state and corporate markets in Denmark. KMD has more than 3,000 employees in Denmark and annual revenue in excess of EUR 500 million. KMD is owned by EQT and ATP.

KMD has chosen SAP as strategic technological platform for the development work. The choice of SAP as a common cornerstone means better coherence between systems, global market standards, and greater openness and freedom of choice for our customers.

SOURCE: Press Release
DATE: March 8th, 2010

Domestic Indian markets are an area of focus for IT vendors in India and large established multi nationals with operations in India. A number of these deals seem to be going to the larger firms. IBM, Accenture have had a fairly high success rate in winning these domestic deals. If the government press release is to be believe there is about $ 10 billion in money for IT governance projects being set aside in India. The $10 billion Indian e-Governance marketplace

Press Release

Wipro Infotech, the India and Middle East IT Business of Wipro Ltd (NYSE:WIT) , has won a turnkey project from the Financial Intelligence Unit – India, Ministry of Finance.

As part of the project, Wipro will implement FINnet (Financial Intelligence Network) for the Financial Intelligence Unit.

The scope of services includes development of portal, data warehousing, de-duplication, analytical application and ERP implementation at the data centre and disaster recovery site.

The project is scheduled to be completed in 24 months, in different phases, with a further service period of 36 months.

According to a press release, IT enablement of key processes would ensure substantially higher productivity, faster turn-around-time and effective monitoring in all areas of the unit’s work.

Economic crimes

The project assumes significance in light of growing economic crimes within the country and the Government’s efforts to arrest it.

With this project, the Government intends to use technology to bring efficiency into analysis of data, added the release.

Mr Arun Goyal, Director, Financial Intelligence Unit India, said, “Wipro has been selected through an open and stringent bidding process. We are keen on timely implementation of the project as it will significantly enhance the unit’s capabilities to collect financial information from various reporting entities, analyse it and disseminate actionable information to various law enforcement and intelligence agencies.”

Mr Ranbir Singh, Head, Government Vertical, Wipro Infotech, said, “This is a very prestigious project for us and we are delighted to have been selected for it. We are confident this implementation will bring in more effective governance from both the economic and security point of view.”

SOURCE: PADA
DATE: March 2nd, 2010

Back in December, looks like TCS was the only company  in running for the UK Pension body deal (PADA) (LINK). UK Personal Accounts Delivery Authoirty  have announced today that the deal to is won by TCS.  Personal Accounts Delivery Authority, announced that the deal will be signed end of this month and could be possibly extended for another 5 years. This is a big win for TCS. The debate on how the UK goverment wants to cut  £3.2 billion from their IT budget and sending public sector, federal government jobs offshore  will continue. But looks like this opens up the doors for other public sector deals in the UK to go offshore. An earlier deal done by TCS ( TCS-CARDIFF DEAL) was announced more in the lines of that this is a partnership with no job loss. 

The reality with signing up TCS or Indian offshore vendors for deals is that they will want to leverage their offshore operation center and for such large deals there will be job displacements.  The challenge the vendors will continue to face is how to offer delivery capabilities within the country. Working with government agencies across US or UK is a different working model compared to corporates. Government agencies are more process oriented, more bureaucratic, have a larger community and social view of their ‘clients’ and the budget comes from public  tax dollars.  Typical margins in government deals are also less and the deals have to be more transparent and success and failures are more public.  TCS has had some snafus in some Indian government deals ( LINK) but continues to strengthen it’s government sector offerings.

Mohit Sharma is the CEO of Corrystone Global Partners. Corrystone is a specialized globalization  firm providing advisory, education and staffing services to firms in  US and India. We work with  firms in the US  which are exploring low cost options for IT, Business Process work and  looking at ways to further optimize cost and manage operational risk. For firms based in India  we help with marketing presence , M&A & client management services in the US. Contact us at info@corrystone.com  to learn more about how we could help you.

The press release from PADA:

PADA is pleased to confirm that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been named as thesuccessful bidder for NEST scheme administration services. PADA intends to sign a contract

Tim Jones, PADA Chief Executive said:

SOURCE: Business Standard
DATE: Feb 25th, 2010

 Wipro, India’s third largest IT services firm, has bagged a 10-year contract with public sector lender Punjab and Sind Bank (PSB) to enable it to centralise banking operations. Though the Bangalore-headquartered company said that the deal size is in excess of Rs 100 crore.

More..

SOURCE: Press Release
DATE: Feb 22nd, 2010

Leveraging domestic Indian markets for international companies and local India based vendors continues to be a key focus area.  Though the percentage of total revenue coming from India for the Services vendors is still fractional compared to their overall revenue , but companies are diversifying and looking at growth areas in India as the west still is slooow in recovery. Defense, Consumer goods, Infrastructure  are still high growth areas in India compared to say an IT services industry.
Wipro continues to look at ways to get into large domestic sectors within India and has been focussing on defense sector for some time now. It has the advantage which US based firms have in their domestic marketplace that these are considered local firms and hence eligible to vie for sensitive deals within the country including defense, federal government and state deals.

For a number of US firms Indian markets are very important as growth engine. Looking at recent earning reports from a majority of the US based blue chip firms , the international growth continues to be the driver.

e.g. HP garnered 2/3rd  of their revenues from outside the US.  Asia grew by 29%. Pepsi had a double digit growth in India around 32%, best they have had in decade as their North American revenues fell by around 9%.

A number if domestic service firms both small and large are also looking to expand their domestic footprint of offerings.

Indian IT services vendor Wipro and Canadian simulation and modeling technology provider CAE have announced a collaboration to jointly provide simulation-based training, operations, maintenance and training support services to the Indian defense forces.

Under the alliance, the companies will provide training systems integration and simulation-based solutions for war gaming, C4ISR and defense platforms. The companies will also assist original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to meet offset obligations in India, required by the Ministry of Defence.

The companies will provide joint investments, sales support and local production support under the alliance.

Partha Sarathi Guha Patra, vice president of Defence, Security & Offsets at Wipro, said: “We are committed to enhancing India’s defense capabilities, and part of this commitment involves bringing state-of-the-art capabilities, technologies
and solutions to India through collaboration and partnership with global leaders. CAE is a recognized leader in training systems integration and simulation technologies, and a company that has made significant investments in India, so we are excited to team with CAE to better serve India’s defense forces.”

In December, Wipro announced an alliance with spend management software vendor Ariba to enable companies across India to accelerate their spend management initiatives. Wipro Infotech, the India and Middle East IT arm of Wipro, also announced a partnership with security and storage software
provider Symantec to offer data loss prevention, and backup and recovery infrastructure consultancy services.

SOURCE: Press Release
DATE: Feb 16th, 2010

Infosys Technologies Limited (Nasdaq: INFY) today announced that it has assisted with the successful implementation of SAP Financials software at United Stationers to streamline finance business processes and reduce operating costs. In working closely with one of North America’s leading broad line wholesale distributors of business products, Infosys helped manage and execute the SAP implementation from business case development, blueprinting, testing and roll-out.

“When selecting our integration partner, we not only looked for efficiency, experience and domain expertise, but also assurance and predictability that our business milestones would be met on time and within budget,” said Ken Nickel, vice president, controller and chief accounting officer, United Stationers. “Infosys has helped deliver a financial platform that has integrated our financial information allowing us to streamline business processes.”

As a result of the systems upgrade, United Stationers effectively implemented a centralized financial platform enabling it to manage its General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Credit Management, Collection/Disputes Management, Controlling and Consolidation functions from a single instance of SAP.

“Infosys is committed to helping industry leaders like United Stationers,” said Larry Danna, associate vice president for retail, consumer packaged goods and logistics at Infosys Technologies. “With extensive large SAP-led transformation experience in consumer packaged goods, retail, and logistics, Infosys is well-equipped to assist companies streamline their financial and accounting business processes and platforms, enable tighter data and process integration across the enterprise, and drive the realization of tangible economic business value.”

About United Stationers

United Stationers Inc. is a leading wholesale distributor of business products, with 2009 net sales of approximately $4.7 billion. The company stocks approximately 100,000 items, including technology products, traditional office products, janitorial and breakroom supplies, office furniture, and industrial supplies. A network of 64 distribution centers allows it to deliver these products to over 25,000 reseller customers. This network, combined with United’s depth and breadth of inventory, enables the company to ship most products overnight to more than 90% of the U.S. and major cities in Mexico. For more information, visit www.unitedstationers.com.

United Stationers’ common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol USTR.

About Infosys Technologies Limited

Infosys (Nasdaq: INFY) defines, designs and delivers IT-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. These solutions focus on providing strategic differentiation and operational superiority to clients. With Infosys, clients are assured of a transparent business partner, world-class processes, speed of execution and the power to stretch their IT budget by leveraging the Global Delivery Model that Infosys pioneered. Infosys has over 109,000 employees in over 50 offices worldwide. Infosys is part of the NASDAQ-100 Index and The Global Dow. For more information, visit www.infosys.com.

SOURCE: EconomicTimes
DATE: Jan 14th, 2009

In a multi year deal with UTV communication , IBM will offer business transformation services to UTV communications , a media company based in India. IBM will supposedly implement the first cloud enabled email services for the firm.

IBM had recently announced that they were going to up their headcount in Indian centers to address growth in the Indian domestic markets. IBM has continued to be a leader in winning domestic wins in India competing with a number of the local big boys.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/software/IBM-signs-5-year-business-transformation-deal-with-UTV/articleshow/5445051.cms

SOURCE: Press Release
DATE: Jan 12, 2010
Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), a global leader in relationship management, announced today that Office Depot (NYSE: ODP), a global supplier of office products and services, has renewed its contract for Convergys HR Solutions for another 12 months.

Convergys will continue to provide HR benefits administration including COBRA, leave of absence, and annual enrollment services, for Office Depot, which has been a Convergys client since 2003.

“The Convergys team understands Office Depot’s business and the needs of its associates,” said John Gibson, President, HR Management, Convergys. “We support Office Depot’s drive to provide its associates with the highest quality care, so that they, in turn, can provide Office Depot’s customers with great service.”

This is the eighth contract renewal in 12 months for Convergys’ HR Solutions.

As a leading global provider of HR Solutions, Convergys partners with HR clients to drive more value from employee relationships, fostering greater organizational effectiveness and lowering costs.

About Convergys

Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG) is a global leader in relationship management. We provide solutions that drive more value from the relationships our clients have with their customers and employees. Convergys turns these everyday interactions into a source of profit and strategic advantage for our clients.

For more than 30 years, our unique combination of domain expertise, operational excellence, and innovative technologies has delivered process improvement and actionable business insight to clients that now span many countries and languages.

Convergys has been voted a Fortune Most Admired Company for nine consecutive years. We have approximately 70,000 employees in 83 customer contact centers and other facilities in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and our global headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. For more information, visit www.convergys.com

(Convergys and the Convergys logo are registered trademarks of Convergys Corporation.)

DATE: Jan 6th, 2009

Genpact recent wins

Walgreens – Will take over the operations for Walgreen in Deerfield and Danville, IL.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100106-710242.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

Max NewYork Life Insurance - http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100106-703803.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLEHeadlinesAsia