With the rupee going from strength to strength and attrition a continuing concern for Indian business process outsourcing companies, the new poster child of private equity investors is witnessing adjustments in valuations in the changed scenario.
Hyderabad-based Applabs, providing quality management, testing, and certification solutions, will be increasing its business from the domestic market. In the next 12 months, the company is aiming at a revenue of $4-5 million (around Rs 15-19 crore) from India.
The concerns were legitimate as unlike the IT industry, more than 90 per cent of the cost of BPOs is in rupees while earnings are in dollars. However, the firms have managed well by focusing on increasing productivity, enhancing employee utilisation, increasing billing rates and effecting better management strategies.
NPIL had announced that it would team up with the French company to develop a drug for the epidemic about six months ago, following the spread of the disease, mainly in southern India and Maharashtra in the last two years. Currently, drugs are not available to effectively treat the disease and doctors in the country administer viral disease drugs such as paracetamol and other anti-biotics to check the infection.
India's largest biotechnology company Biocon is planning to tap the potential of biosimilars (generics or copycat versions of biotech drugs going off patent) in the regulated markets of the US and Europe, besides taking Insugen, its own version of insulin, to the global markets in a big way.
Neeraj Bhargava, CEO of Mumbai-based business process outsourcing (BPO firm) WNS Global Services, and his team have voluntarily decided to forfeit their bonuses if they are not successful in getting the attrition rates below 30 per cent. This is probably the first such move of its kind in the industry in which attrition has become a critical issue. WNS has over 15,000 employees, and its current attrition rate stands at 43 per cent.
While this is a global phenomenon, it is for the first time that the Indian Music Industry (IMI) is making an effort to stop this before it erodes the revenue stream of music companies like it is already happening in the software, gaming and the movie segments.
Sony Computer Entertainment, an arm of Sony Pictures, is planning to increase its console-based business in India.The company - responsible for the distribution, marketing and sales of PlayStation - opened its India office four months back and is now getting its strategy in place to offer variety and a better experience to gamers.
Indian IT service providers are increasing their exposure in the healthcare and pharma segments. Multi-million dollar deals in this space by IT firms over the past three-four months only buttress this trend. Healthcare outsourcing has moved away from just undertaking medical transcription and business process outsourcing (BPO) work to core functions such as drug discovery, testing, research and development.
US-based Spectrum Global Fund Administration, providing back-office operations to hedge funds in the US and the UK, is closing its facilities in India. The company had started its operations in India two years ago.
Unlike the first quarter of FY08 when Indian IT small- and mid-caps were hit hard due to a nearly 7 per cent appreciation in the rupee against the dollar, the July-September period was relatively kind to these firms. It spared them to some extent, since the rupee appreciated around 1.5 per cent over the period. However, the rupee rose around 12 per cent against the dollar over the last 12 months.
Contrary to popular understanding, operators do not manage these incoming votes. It is the channel operators who manage and collate the results of these SMSes. Yet, in terms of revenue sharing, close to 70 per cent of the share goes to the telecom provider while the channels get only 30 per cent.
Indian notebook sales are moving at a scorching pace -- 73 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2007 -- and this is affecting the volume growth in the IT peripherals market.
India is the fourth largest manufacturer of pharmaceutical products in the world and the 12th largest in value terms. India could emerge as the second largest producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), next to China, within two to five years, overtaking Italy, according to various estimates.
Close to 60 per cent of revenues of Indian IT service providers comes from the US market. With the rupee having appreciated more than 12 per cent over the past year, IT firms have increased billing rates, in most cases for new as well as existing clients.
Indian IT firms have been announcing incremental increase in billing rates for quite some time now to counter wage hikes and rising visa costs, to name a few.
Mumbai-based Patni Computer System's stake sale has been stalled, perhaps indefinitely, according to sources close to the development.
ONGC Videsh (OVL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), is eyeing more gas fields in Libya.
The company will be taking its total outsourcing offering to the retailers in the small and medium enterprise category, whereas for the large retailers, it will pitch the best-of-the-breed target solutions to cater to specific problems.
Rohm and Haas, one of the largest speciality material manufacturers in the world, plans to invest $100 million (about Rs 410 crore) in India to develop manufacturing and research and development facilities.
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