"Japan currently accounts for 5 per cent of our revenues but we see this touching 9 per cent in the next three years. Business from Japan grew almost 35 per cent last year and we expect healthy growth from this region," said Deepak Khosla, senior vice-president and head, Asia-Pacific. Patni company has been in Japan for over 10 years but, in the past two years, the momentum of deals has increased considerably.
Indian retailers put cash & carry on backburner
The company has already booked Rs 5,450 crore (Rs 54.5 billion) revenue from sale of 5 million sq ft it has sold to DAL. DLF on Tuesday clarified to the exchanges that it had been looking at various options from time to time but no definite option had been presented to the board so far for its consideration.
Analysts see HCL's Rs 1,780 crore deal with Reader's Digest and another half-a-dozen big deals signed in the past three months by Indian IT firms, encompassing both global and domestic markets, as evidence that the outsourcing story continues to progress as the best option for companies to cut costs in the current difficult economic environment.
Developer to bid for work from those who win the final contract.
Dell has announced the launch in India of its Global Small Business Excellence Award. India will be participating in these awards for the first time. The global competition will see entries from 13 countries, including China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The winner will get $50,000 (around Rs 2.5 million) in Dell solutions and a meeting with Chairman Michael Dell. For the India leg of the competition, Dell expects 300-400 entries.
Indian information technology vendors may be missing an unfolding opportunity in the current American recession, Gartner India, the research firm, has warned.
India's largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), says it will see more deals in its infrastructure services (IS) business in the $5-10 million range this year than in the $15-100 million one.
Companies are either taking small government projects alone or bidding for larger ones with consortium partners. The companies, which had 18-75 per cent of their order books in property development, say they are facing payment delays of 20-90 days from some of the private developers, blocking their working capital requirements. Some of them take a week's advance payment from developers to execute their projects.
While the exact number of employees being asked to quit could not be confirmed, sources said close to 1,000 employees were tipped to go. Syntel has around 11,000 employees in India. The shifting of employees to the KPO operations is part of increasing its utilisation and reducing the bench strength.
Reliance Retail has added 485 stores in the last one year, taking the total count to 950 and the footprint is now spread across 77 cities (58 in the last one year) across India. While his critics say Ambani may have lost the plot as the progress of his retail plans are nowhere near what he had sought to achieve, others feel the Reliance chief is just being pragmatic given the not-so-conducive environment for expansion in retail.
After a lacklustre winter season sale, apparel retailers are now planning to cut their summer purchases by as much as 20 per cent to save holding cost and reduce pressure on working capital.
For TCS, the retail business has been growing at 10-12 per cent over the last three quarters. On a year-on-year basis, the growth rate of the retail business has been impacted due to currency fluctuation and the general slowdown. In dollar terms, the retail business grew 51.6 per cent for the company last financial year.
Capgemini has gone back on its previous expectations of modest growth in the first half of 2009, following a significant deterioration in the wider economic environment since the third quarter, said John O'Brien, senior analyst at advisory and consulting firm Ovum. Capgemini now expects to see a modest decline in the first-half sales, while maintaining an operating margin of 6.5 per cent.
According to sources in the Future Group, it plans to tie up with international retailers in different segments. "We can certainly look at bringing in foreign capital to our subsidiaries now," said a group official, who did not wish to be quoted. Under the new guidelines, downstream investments by an Indian company that has foreign investment but is owned and controlled by Indians will not be considered as FDI.
Tata Consultancy Services, the country's largest IT company, has changed its hiring strategy and will focus on just-in-time hiring or real-time talent management."TCS has decided to adopt the policy of real-time management whereby we will hire in the last three months of the final year of graduation rather than a year before," said S Ramadorai, managing director and chief executive officer, TCS.
Though end-of-season sale is common in the first week of February, what is interesting this time around is the quantum and timing of the offers. Retailers are giving away 20-25 per cent additional discounts, compared to the last year. Also, they began giving discounts at least three weeks before the ususal timing.
The retailer, which runs a supermarket chain under the More brand, is targeting annual sales of $4.5 billion (Rs 22,000 crore or Rs 220 billion) by March 2014 from Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) in the current financial year. The retailer clocked sales of Rs 500 in the previous year. In 2007, the company had talked about a Rs 9,000 crore (Rs 90 billion) investment plan.
Meanwhile, 117 Pan-Asian private equity players - with India as focus -- aim to raise funds worth $59 billion, says UK-based Preqin, an alternative assets research and consultancy group. On a global platform, he said, majority of investors remain positive towards private equity. Aditya Birla Private Equity is an example.
Less than half-a-dozen people have evinced interest in buying the eight apartments owned by the late Harshad Mehta and his family, partly due to a last-minute case filed by the stockbroker's mother, Rasila S Mehta.
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