TCS, GE join hands to create first all-women BPO in Saudi

Pune: India’s largest information technology services provider, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and GE have entered into a joint venture to set up the first all-women business process services centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

TCS and GE will have 76 per cent and 24 per cent equity, respectively. The first anchor customers would be Saudi Aramco, the kingdom’s national oil company, and GE. The new centre is to serve as a building block to localise a business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in Saudi Arabia. The three partners (Saudi Aramco being the third) are to scale up the new venture, to create up to 3,000 jobs for Saudi female professionals. GE will create up to 1,000 employment opportunities for this initiative.

Cyrus Mistry, chairman of Tata Group, present at the inaugural event, said: “The Tata Group has a long history of encouraging women to achieve their potential and contribute to the community...Saudi Arabia is a focus market for the Tata Group, where we have built strong partnerships, and this ambitious initiative is an example of our commitment to this market.” The Saudi Arabian government is trying to diversify its economy away from a dependence on petroleum, encouraging localisation and growth of a viable employment sector.

“In addition to the array of manufacturing and industrial jobs, services are an even bigger creator of wide-ranging employment...In recent decades, the world, including Saudi Arabian enterprises, has been outsourcing these functions offshore. It’s time to bring those jobs home,” said Khalid A Al Falih, president and chief executive of Saudi Aramco. GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt said: “We are proud to be supporting female employment opportunities in the kingdom.”

Initially providing services to the anchor clients, the centre is to eventually expand the customer base. In due course, GE and TCS will work with leading Saudi educational institutions for specialised training.

N Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD, Tata Consultancy Services said: “This unique initiative will leverage a new talent pool in the Kingdom to meet the business needs of corporations in the region. It is an example of our long-term commitment to this market. By drawing on our proven global expertise in business process services, our ability to partner with corporations as well as develop talented professionals, we will help achieve the goals of this pioneering venture.”

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Parle Agro launches India’s first coffee carbonated drink

New Delhi: Two decades after Parle sold marquee soft drinks brands such as Thums Up, Limca and Gold Spot to Coca-Cola, one of the Parle brothers, Prakash Chauhan, is returning to the carbonated soft drinks segment. Chauhan's Parle Agro on Tuesday launched Cafe Cuba, the country's first coffee-flavoured carbonated beverage.

The product, available in 250 ml cans priced Rs 20, was recently test-marketed in big cities and is now being taken to smaller towns and rural markets. The maker of juices and fruit drinks such as Frooti, Appy and Hippo expects the new coffee drink to record Rs 1,000-crore sales in the first 12-18 months of its launch.

In an exclusive interaction with ET, Prakash Chauhan said his firm is initially targeting 5% share of the Rs 15,000-crore carbonated soft drinks (CSD) market with Cafe Cuba. Edited excerpts:

Was the decision to re-enter CSD emotional?

It was more business than emotional. Emotions will come in after the product is put in the market. The product is more a strategic one, which we feel has a greater chance of success in a big category.

Cola segment is big in soft drinks, while tea is the preferred choice in the hot beverages space in India. Both your beverage and its name are completely different...

When we were thinking about what could be a possible product, there were many options, including tea and coffee. We decided on coffee and started working with flavour houses to blend the product, which came out good. If we had created another cola, then we would have spent lots of money to compete with rivals. But we created coffee and are not competing with any other products in the market. We are targeting a 5% market share initially.

Will you replicate similar strategy you had for Thums Up and other popular brands?

We will bring a strong character and an identifiable taste, which is not common. Even today, Thums Up has its identity and taste. We don't want a wishywashy personality of the product and have to be focused on what this product is without wavering from it. We will follow everything same as earlier because we should never deviate from a success story.

Won't you feel bad when the new product competes with brands you created years ago?

Not at all. Within our company, if this brand competes with Appy Fizz, it's not a problem. Our focus is on creating strong character and personality and identifiable taste.

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RBI relaxes norms to raise funds from abroad

New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has relaxed norms to raise funds from abroad. All types of companies are now allowed to avail trade credit facility from overseas for import of capital goods.

“On a review, it has been decided to allow companies in all sectors to avail of trade credit not exceeding US$ 20 million up to a maximum period of five years for import of capital goods as classified by Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT),” according to RBI.

The amended policy has come into force with immediate effect.

Earlier, only companies in the infrastructure sector were allowed to raise such trade credits.

The ab initio contract period of 15 months for all trade credits has also been relaxed to 6 months by the RBI.

All other aspects of trade credit policy will remain unchanged and should be complied with, as per RBI.

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IT sector revenue to cross $225 b by 2020

Chennai: Newer technologies such as social media, analytics and cloud computing (SMAC) will help India’s IT-BPO industry cross $225-billion-mark in revenues by 2020, according to a CII report.

These technologies have opened new avenues for the Indian IT-BPO vendors. Since globally companies are adopting SMAC technologies for operational efficiency, Indian IT-BPO vendors can develop their SMAC strategies, according to CII Report – ‘The SMAC Code – Embracing New Technologies for Future Business’ released at at CII Connect 2013.

SMAC enables companies leverage the cloud for storing huge volumes of multi-structured customer data, generated over mobile devices and social media and analyse these data sets for business advantage.

Industry estimates suggest that the global ICT spending will reach the $5-trillion mark by 2020 driven by the combination of social media, mobility, analytics and cloud. In 2012, SMAC approximately contributed about 20 per cent of the total ICT spending and they are collectively, growing at about 18 per cent year-on-year. At this rate, it is expected that these technologies will become 80 per cent of the total spending by 2020, the report said.

The Indian IT industry expanded from an $8 billion in 2000 to an estimated $ 108 billion in 2013. The industry took advantage of the vast pool of highly skilled resources available at low cost, and rode on the wave of application development and BPM services to spread its wings.

However, going forward, the vendors should seek to work closely with their customers to stay abreast of the latest technological developments, and come up with solutions that can take advantage of SMAC, the report said.

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Kerala plans to be destination for skills training

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala is proposing a grand plan to not only skill its young people but also provide related know-how to other parts of the country.

This is being taken up as part of the Prime Minister’s initiative for imparting skills to 50 crore young people by 2022, State Labour Minister Shibu Baby John said.

SKILLING TARGET
A concept note prepared by the State labour department projects that, on a proportionate basis, Kerala will need to skill 1.35 crore youngsters by 2022.

This means that over the next nine-year period, the State would need to target on an average 15 lakh young people for skilling every year.

This represents an eight-fold increase in the numbers that the State is averaging concurrently, the note said.

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Tech Mahindra sets up engineering college with French university tie-up

Hyderabad: The Mahindras have diversified into the higher education. Its group company, Tech Mahindra, has established an engineering college in association with the 200-year-old French university, Ecole Centrale and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University.

The institute, which has come up at Tech Mahindra’s Bahadurpally property here, will offer a dual degree. Students will get a B.Tech. degree from JNTU and after completing the fifth year, they would get M.Tech from the French university.

Vineet Nayyar, Executive Vice-Chairman of Tech Mahindra, said though the country had scores of engineering colleges, there is vacuum when it comes to quality. Though the country has some good colleges, they have failed to meet global benchmarks.

After consolidating the activities of college, Tech Mahindra would set up satellite centres in cities such as Jaipur, Pune, Chennai and Goa.

Mahindra Ecole Centrale, which will begin courses from the next summer, will take students based on their performance in the common IIT entrance examination, C. P. Gurnani, Chief Executive officer and Managing Director of Tech Mahindra, said.

The fee structure for the courses, however, has not been decided yet. The curriculum would conform to the norms the AICTE (All-India Council for Technical Education).

The college, however, is not to be restricted to technological studies only. There would be several other streams such as energy, infrastructure and humanities. “The college will have a modern and international academic programme that blends basic scientific and technical education with contemporary industry practices,” Nayyar said.

“Our integrated curriculum will develop students with the unique ability to adapt to global engineering challenges and new technologies that will shape our future and also to master the complexity of multinational organisations,” he said.

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BHEL secure orders worth over Rs 31,650 crore during FY 2012-13

New Delhi: Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd secured orders worth over Rs 31,650 crore during financial year 2012-13, an increase of 43 per cent over 2011-12.

The orders were received from sectors like captive power, rail transportation, power transmission, oil and gas, renewable energies and other industrial segments, BHEL chairman and managing director B P Rao said on Friday.

"Despite subdued business conditions in the power and infrastructure sectors coupled with intense competition in domestic and overseas markets, BHEL was able to secure orders worth Rs 31,650 crore, an increase of 43 per cent over 2011-12," he said in his speech to shareholders.

The company had an order book of over Rs 22,096 crore in the 2011-12. The total orders in hand for execution are at about Rs 1,15,100 crore, he said. Rao said that the company clocked a turnover of Rs 50,156 crore and a net profit of Rs 6,615 crore in 2012-13.

BHEL commissioned 10,340 mw power plant equipment during 2012-13. and received export orders of Rs 2,004 crore from 20 countries in 2012-13.

BHEL's June quarter update:-

>Orders received during: Rs 1469 crore

>Power sector: Rs 818 crore

>Industry sector: Rs 648 crore

>Orders bagged for supply of boiler package for 4 units of 120-mw from Jindal Power Ltd for thermal projects in Africa.

>Order book as on June 30, 2013: Rs 1,08,600 crore

>82 per cent by power sector

>10 per cent by industry sector

>8 per cent by international operations.

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