Bangalore, Floored

Bangalore: The IT industry has some job worries. More than 500 IBM and TCS employees across the country have been retrenched. This has techies in the IT industry uncertain about their future.
Worried IT guys writing, speaking their mind on blogs. This is what dominates the cyberspace these days. Well, at least in the techies' domain.
The worry stems from the recent retrenchment of many like them from the TCS and IBM.
Though many like Akhil (name changed) who works in IT firm, don't feel alarmed yet, the truth is - the younger crop IS apprehensive.
And with the gossip mills running riot, many in the industry feel their future may not be as secure as they once thought it to be.
Akhil says, "The panic hasn't as such set in. Among the fresher there might be a certain amount of wariness."
However, industry leaders dismiss the retrenchment of more than 500 IBM and TCS employees across the country as routine - a part of quality control.
You underperform and you get sacked. They say it has little to do with the rising rupee or the slowdown in the US economy.
Customer XPs CEO, Rivi Varghese says, "As an industry grows higher up the chain, it is but natural that a small percentage of the people will not be able to keep pace with that. So it is a question of expectations not being met."
Let's not panic yet - that seems to be the message being sent out by young techies to their friends and colleagues in the industry but having said that the IBM, TCS exodus has made the situation deeply disturbing.

WIPRO MultiSkilled Workforce

In an effort to slash hiring and increase efficiency, Wipro Technologies, one of the leading IT companies in the country, is training its employees to turn into a multi-skilled workforce.The Bangalore-headquartered company is providing training to its employees in different domains and technologies to cater to the current requirements as the company is pursuing for integrated deals by providing both BPO and IT services by a single team."When people are multi-skilled, we will likely have fewer people. Instead of having two individuals being paid lower salaries, we are better off paying more to a single person who is capable of doing both work. This not only improves turnaround times, but also efficiency in operations," Girish Paranjpe, Joint CEO for Wipro's IT business, told Business Standard.With an aim of optimally using its manpower in both IT and BPO operations, Wipro has already signed a few large integrated deals, wherein the company is providing both the IT outsourcing and BPO services by a single team. The company has transitioned some of their employees from each of these two businesses (IT and BPO) to work for such projects.According to Paranjpe, the company has signed up three-four large clients who have outsourced their entire IT and BPO activity to the company. By the end of FY09, the company expects that close to 1,000 people will be deployed in the integrated outsourcing projects."One of the things we are trying to drive is integrated projects by offering both BPO and IT services. So, it makes more sense to have a fungible team. Much of our new work, we are hoping to do in an integrated fashion — where we will manage the IT application and also carry out the business process for the clients," Paranjpe added.In December last year, Wipro had offered close to 2,000 campus recruits from various engineering colleges jobs in the BPO business till they could be absorbed in the company's IT business. The experiment of putting engineering graduates into BPO work, however, seems to have seen a very limited success as the company found many of them unsuitable for BPO works.Analysts say, Wipro's experiment of putting engineering graduates into BPO work was driven by the company's aggressive quest to make the manpower multi-skilled so that they could be useful as the company signs more number of integrated deals.Of about 1,000 people who had accepted the offers to join the BPO jobs, the company found only about 300 suitable for the job after initial screening. Among those who failed to qualify the initial screening, close to 450 people are undergoing training now, and will be asked to take the test again, according to Wipro's Head of HR Pratik Kumar.Said Kumar, "If today we are looking for engineers for BPO works, it's not because we have engineers who are sitting idle. But because suddenly we found that nature of the job is such, we require engineers as well. It's is not a utilisation issue. It's an issue of the integrated nature of the work which is throwing opportunities."

List of Layoffs gets bigger

According to JobeeHive Layoff Counter, there are thousands of layoffs in India in high-tech sector: Globallogic, Navi Mumbai SEZ, Puravankara Projects, HSBC India, Sapient, Caritor India, etc.

Astrological Reasons for State in USA and Recession

In classical vedic texts Jupiter is the ruling planet for United States of America. Look at the position of Jupiter from October 2008 onwards.

1. Jupiter is in debilitation
2. Jupiter has Saturn in 8th house

Result:
- United States in Recession
- Banking and Financial Services (Represented by Jupiter) are going bankrupt
- Loans represented by 6th house (saturn being 12th from 6th) are unpaid
- Interest Rates represented by Jupiter (Are in a downward spiral)

So when will this recession end??
Purely based on astrological reasoning, the recession that the world is currently seeing would last till October 2009, only a Gradual Recovery after that till June 2009 and after that stability (It doesnt mean that we will be back to the good old days of sensex being at 20000+)

The Blue Ocean for an IT Employee

Some thoughts on how to find the Blue Ocean in today's recessionary trend:

1. Niche, Niche and Niche, look at niche skills which are not available easily in the market (though the demand may also be low)

2. Be in Maintenance rather than New Development. Companies have to maintain their applications, the first calamity of recession is all new development work

3. Work on Cross Skilling, get skilled in multiple technologies

4. Work on opensource. Due to the recessionary trend, opensource is in so get those ubuntu, linux, apache, mysql skills brushed up.

5. Go back to college, reskill and reinvent yourself for a new career

6. Network, Network and Network, create a network, it is an important need to get jobs particulary if you are at a senior position

7. Hard Work.

8. Be open to work on weekends and nights :)

9. Save money for reskilling.

Top 10 Indian OutSourcing Companies

The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals has announced the world's best outsourcing service providers in 2008. The Global Outsourcing 100 list has 6 Indian companies among the top ten. In the global 100 ranking, Infosys is ranked third, followed by Capgemini and TCS at fifth and sixth positions, respectively.
1.Infosys
Infosys ranks first among Indian companies in terms of outsourcing and is ranked third in The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals' list.
IAOP mentions its key strength as executive leadership. IAOP, in association with Fortune magazine, inducted N. R. Narayana Murthy and Nandan M. Nilekani, co-founders, Infosys, into 'The Outsourcing Hall of Fame'.
In 2007, Infosys was ranked at No. 7 on the strength of customer testimonials.
Infosys Technologies Ltd was started in 1981 by 7 people with just $250. Today, the company has revenues of over $4 billion.
2. TCS
TCS is ranked 2nd among Indian companies and is at the sixth position globally. The company's strength lies in employee management.
TCS has over 130,300 trained IT consultants in 42 countries offering IT and IT-enabled services. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $5.7 billion for fiscal year ended 31 March 2008.
S. Ramadorai, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director for TCS.
3.Wipro
Wipro ranks third in the list. It is ranked 7th in the world's top outsourcing providers' list. Its key strength is employee management.
Headquartered in Bangalore, the company has a client base of Fortune 1000 and Global 500 companies. With combined revenues of US $5 billion, core areas of business include global IT services, infrastructure solutions, professional services and business solutions in India and the Asia Pacific region.
Wipro employs over 100,000 people. Azim H Premji is the chairman of Wipro.
4. Genpact
Genpact is ranked 4th among Indian companies and is ranked 9th in the world. It key strength is executive leadership.
Genpact began in 1997 as the India-based business process services operation for GE Capital.
In 2005, with equity investments from General Atlantic and Oak Hill Capital Partners, it became an independent company and was rebranded Genpact.
The company reported a net income of $125.1 million for 2008, up 122 per cent over 2007, while the revenue rose 26 per cent.
Genpact manages services from a global network of more than 31 operations centers in ten countries. Pramod Bhasin is the president and CEO.
5. Tech Mahindra
Tech Mahindra is ranked 5th among Indian companies and is ranked 10th in the world. Its key strength is outsourcing experience.
Tech Mahindra was incorporated as a joint venture between Mahindra & Mahindra and BT plc in 1986 under the name of 'Mahindra-British Telecom'.
Later, the name was changed to 'Tech Mahindra'. The company reported a 12 per cent growth in quarterly net profit at Rs 222.90 crore (Rs 2.22 billion) and revenues for the Mahindra group company rose by 17 per cent to Rs 1,132.20 crore (Rs 11.32 billion). Tech Mahindra reported a 12 per cent growth in quarterly net profit at Rs 222.90 crore in the quarter ended December.
Vineet Nayyar is the managing director & CEO of the company.
6. HCL Tech
HCL comes next at 6th position and its world ranking is 11.
Its key strength is outsourcing experience.
HCL Technologies focuses on software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and R&D services and BPO.
HCL has a network of offices in 19 countries offering sevices in financial services, manufacturing, aerospace & defense, telecom, retail, life sciences & healthcare, media and entertainment, travel, etc.
HCL Technologies, along with its subsidiaries, had consolidated revenues of US$ 2.0 billion (Rs 8,974 crore), as on 31st December 2008.
Vineet Nayar is the CEO of the $2.0 billion HCL Technologies.
7. HOV Services
HOV services is ranked 7th among Indian companies.
It's ranked 15th in the world. Its key strength is outsourcing experience. HOV Services Limited one of the largest end-to-end BPO company headquartered in Chennai, India.
It offers finance and accounting services in the BFSI, healthcare, government, telco, publishing, retail, commercial and industrial manufacturing industries.
Its clients include over 50 per cent of the Fortune 100 companies across key verticals such as financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, insurance, construction, publishing, finance and accounting and government.
The company has more than 12,000 employees. The company's total income for the third quarter ended December 31, 2008 has increased to Rs 23,586 crore (Rs 235.86 billion). Suresh Yannamani is the president of the company.
8. Mastek
Mastek bags the 8th position while it's ranked 16th in the world.
Its key strength lies in customer testimonials. Ashank Desai, R. Sundar and Ketan Mehta established Mastek in Mumbai in 1982.
Mastek, is a Rs 916 crore (US $227 million) publicly held, leading IT player providing enterprise solutions to insurance, government, and financial services organizations worldwide. Mastek operates across the US, Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific regions.
9. Hexaware Technologies
Hexaware Technologies is at 9th position. The company ranked is 22nd in the world and its key strength lies in competency certification.
Hexaware is a global provider of IT and process outsourcing services. Founded in 1990, Hexaware has 6 development centres - three in India and one each in Germany, USA and Mexico, and offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, and employs around 5500 workers globally. In 2008, Hexaware generated over $262 million in revenue.
Atul Nishar is the founder and executive chairman of the company.
10. ITC Infotech
ITC Infotech comes next in the list, it is ranked at 40 globally and its key strength is competency certification.
ITC Infotech, a global IT services company, is a fully-owned subsidiary of ITC Limited.
Headquartered in Bangalore, India, with subsidiaries in UK and USA, ITC Infotech services Fortune-listed customers across North America and Europe. Sanjiv Puri is managing director of ITC Infotech India Ltd.

TCS Layoff and Variable Salary Cut

India’s biggest software exporter by sales, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), will lay off less than a percent of its global workforce over the next few months, as these employees failed to meet performance standards, a company spokesperson said.This roughly works out to almost 1300 of its total employee count, which is around 1.3 lakh. IT companies have started adopting stringent appraisal measures, trimming costs and improving productivity as they grapple with the global economic slow down.TCS employees, on condition of anonymity said the lay-offs have already started happening at the company’s development centres in Chennai, where over two hundred employees have been asked to leave in the last fortnight. When contacted, a member of the TCS corporate communication team confirmed the development but did not put a number or place to it. “This is mostly employees who have been given a second chance to improve and haven’t. They will be sent over a period, in the next few months. This will constitute less than a percent of our global workforce. We had to let go of 500 people last year on performance issues.”This comes less than a week after the company’s CEO S Ramadorai said the company would review the variable pay component for its employees and also increase the working hours.When asked about job cuts, he had said the company wasn’t planning to cut jobs immediately but might have to if the situation worsened. Employee expenses make up for at least 53-54% of the company’s total cost. Going by its analyst presentation for the third quarter ended December 2008, TCS had a total employee count of 1,30,343.