Tuesday, July 18, 2006

 

Hyderabad Business News July 19th,2006

TCS posts robust Q1 net of Rs 883cr

Hyderabad, July 18: Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest software and services firm, announced robust results for the first quarter of 2006-07, with a net profit of Rs 883 crores, an increase of 34.99 per cent year-on-year, while total increase jumped 46.27 per cent to Rs 4,227 crores year-on-year.

TCS’ net profit jumped 6.07 per cent quarter-on-quarter while its total income recorded an increase of 13.96 quarter-on-quarter. EPS rose from Rs 17.01 in the last quarter of 2005-06 to Rs 18.04 in the first quarter of this fiscal, a company release said, adding that the board had recommended a dividend of Rs 3 per equity share.

“At TCS, the management continues to focus on driving sustainable, robust growth and has been marked by strong growth in volumes coupled with increasing traction for our new growth engines like BPOs and consulting,” Mr S. Ramadorai, CEO and managing director of the company, was quoted as saying. The company hired 4,698 employees and added 62 new clients in the first quarter.

Referring to large deals in the quarter, the release said that TCS had been selected by a large North American retailer as a strategic partner for developing business critical applications in a deal worth over $50 million, while a telecommunication service provider in West Asia has engaged TCS to provide an end-to-end CRM solution for its wireless network comprising GSM and 3G services in a deal worth US $33 million.

Meanwhile, the BPO operations had also found traction, the release said, with a major US-based pharmaceutical company selecting TCS for clinical data management and statistical analysis.
“The Global Consulting Practice continued to have excellent traction with TCS’ existing large customers and generated 95 per cent of its revenues during the quarter with existing customers,” it said.

The total employee strength of the company was 71,190, with employees coming from 53 different nationalities. Non-Indian nationals formed 7.3 per cent of the total employee base and 25 per cent were women. TCS’ performance follows the equally robust performance in the first quarter by Infosys Technologies Ltd, which last week reported a 49.2 per cent jump in its net profit in the first quarter to Rs 794 crores.


Ford to share back-office synergies with Volvo Cars

Hyderabad, July 18: Conceding that Ford India had its hands full with its own operational duties, senior company officials on Tuesday emphasised that Volvo Cars India would only have limited synergies with the company in the area of back-office support.

Ford India and Volvo Cars India, scheduled to make its India debut later this year, are owned by the Ford Motor Company. “Ford India and Volvo Cars would be run as different subsidiaries as is the case across the world. However, we would provide back-office support in IT and administration to Volvo Cars,” Mr Scott McCormack, vice-president (marketing, sales and service) of Ford India, told this newspaper in an interview at the nationwide launch of the diesel version of Ford Fiesta EXI here.

Ford’s decision to look actively at diesel-run cars is bouyed by the fact that diesel cars’ share of India’s passenger vehicles market will grow to 35 per cent from 30 per cent by 2010. Currently, there are three variants in the Fiesta diesel range and a diesel engine variant of Ford Fusion is also in the pipeline.

“The market is undergoing a change and diesel-run cars have a proven track record in terms of fuel-efficiency,” he said. With Ford Motor Co. enhancing its focus on green cars globally, its India subsidiary plans to roll out the CNG version of the Ford Ikon targeted at large fleets. “We plan to launch CNG-based models in India, and Ford Ikon will be the first to be launched in this version,” Mr McCormack said.

Ford has joined Hindustan Motors and General Motors which have announced the launch of CNG versions of Lancer and Chevy SRV respectively. Hyundai is also conducting feasibility studies across its models for CNG-enabled cars, a company official said.

Ruling out any plans in the near term for a small car launch, Mr McCormack said the focus for Ford India this year would centre around increasing the dealer network and raising Fiesta sales which have touched 20,000 since its launch in November 2005.

On the critical issue of rising input costs, Mr McCormack admitted that automakers were reeling under the costs and a decision on increasing prices of Ford cars was a “distinct possibility.”
Air Deccan, Kingfisher sign deal with engine majors

Hyderabad, July 18: A day after low-cost airline GoAir ordered 10 aircraft from Airbus Industrie at the Farnborough Air Show in England, Indian airline companies continued their shopping spree with Kingfisher Airlines and Air Deccan placing orders worth $800 million for engines.

Kingfisher Airlines said on Tuesday it had ordered 10 Pratt & Whitney engines to power its fleet of Airbus A330 planes in a deal worth $300 million and had taken an option for 10 more. Air Deccan backed its fleet expansion of 30 V2500-powered aircraft with a 500SelectSM services agreement with IAE International Aero Engines in a deal valued at $500 million.

The agreement was signed by Kingfisher Airlines chairman Vijay Mallya and Pratt & Whittney president (commercial engineering) Steve Heath on the sidelines of the airshow.
Air Deccan’s agreement will be extended to cover Air Deccan’s existing fleet and an earlier firm order of 30 Airbus A320 family aircraft.

The latest engine order brings the total firm V2500-powered A320 family aircraft on order to 60. IAE President Mark King was said, “With the introduction of V2500SelectSM for its entire fleet, Air Deccan will not only enjoy the low and predictable maintenance costs that this OEM-backed service can bring, but will also be able to focus on achieving its vision of affordable air transport in India for the common man.”

On the IAE deal, Air Deccan’s managing director Captain G.R. Gopinath said: “The V2500 has played a vital part in our success to date with its reliable and fuel efficient operation and, through V2500SelectSM we expect to see ongoing improvements not only in terms of performance but also asset value.” V2500SelectSM is a combined engine upgrade and aftermarket support programme.
Kalam to CEOs: Change from commanders to coach
In business: By olga tellis

Am sure that the business and industry fraternity had never been given a talk on the economy and various aspects of growth and technology as President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam did. He was a delight specially when he went into the interactive mode. He told them that he would like to talk about the growth of the economic development and prosperity. Talking about how to achieve competitiveness, he threw questions to the audience and funnily not one had the right answer, which he then provided himself.

President’s questions

He asked what powers economic development? Competitiveness. What powers competitiveness? Knowledge power. What powers knowledge power? Technology and innovation.

What powers technology and innovation? Resource investment. What powers resource investment? Revenue and return on investment. And what empowers revenue? Volume and repeat sales through customer loyalty. And what powers customer loyalty? Quality and value of products. And what powers quality and value of products? Employee productivity and innovation. which, he said, is powered by employee loyalty, employee satisfaction and working environment.

Delegator not director

The working environment, he said, is powered by management stewardship and management stewardship is powered by creative leadership. And creative leadership means exercising the vision to change the traditional role from the commander to the coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self respect.

Outsource to rural India

Another terrific suggestion that the President gave was regarding local outsourcing. Today, MNCs are coming to our country for the availability of high technical man power and a lower cost of production in software or hardware or a combination of both.
Industries have to take this potential as an advantage. He thought of a great idea from his really fertile brain. He suggested that in outsourcing and sub-contracting methods, the Indian Merchants’ Chamber (whose centenary celebrations he launched on Tuesday) may outsource component level items to cottage industries and also to homes wherever applicable in the rural areas.

Citibank follow-up

Following the column on last Wednesday regarding Mr Chiranjit’s problems with Citibank, we got a reply from Citibank, which said:

* When Citibank received instructions of change of address, we changed it in our records.

* He informed us that he had not received the statement, so we re-issued the statement to the new mailing address once again. We also provided an alternative option to use the Citibank website to access account information.

* As he did not make his payment by the due date, we called him to remind him about payment due on his card. Our customers find this useful if they are out of town, etc.

* Mr Chiranjit wrote to us on June 21 with regards to the non-receipt of statements.
This time, a senior officer spoke to Mr Chiranjit, re-issued the statement, ensured that the statement reached him and his payment issues were resolved. All issues were closed satisfactorily on July 5.

No July 5 letter

As one said in this column, Mr Chiranjit had been in correspondence for a month with Citibank and only when he was getting nowhere, he sent a copy to the RBI’s Ombudsman. On July 5, only verbal assurances were given, but there was nothing in writing explaining the reasons for delay. He objected to his statement being sent as past dues as he takes pride in being a prompt payer. We have the correspondence dated July 10 and then July 12, the latter Mr Chiranjit received coincidentally a few hours after he had read the column in this newspaper!
Asia, Pacific good for IPTV market
IT Today

The Asia-Pacific region is leading the global revolution of IPTV in infrastructure deployments, applications development and subscriber adoption. The region’s broadband penetration and regulatory support help to foster the fastest-growing IPTV market in the world, says In-Stat, a high-tech market research firm.

“With IPTV, incumbent telecos have the opportunity to fundamentally change their broadband customers’ video service experience from the traditional video clip streaming and downloading model,” In-Stat says. “IPTV is expected to be the real killer application in the telecos’ broadband services portfolio that will increase ARPU and preserve user-stickiness.”

A recent In-Stat study found that by 2011, the Asia-Pacific market is expected to reach 39 million IPTV subscribers, while the total IPTV revenue in the region will reach $8.1 billion by 2011. However, providers will need to find a unique approach to packaging and bundling in order to attract customers and maintain a competitive edge. As a result, most IPTV service providers have strategically integrated services in their triple-play bundled offerings, it says.

Zizou code

It’s one head-butt incident which refuses to go away. The whopper delivered by Zinedine Zidane to the head of the Italian guy has been adopted with gusto online. There are several websites featuring Zizou using his head as a weapon, some of them an animated version of the encounter.

Others, too, have been using the head-butt to pass malicious code. According to Websense, a company that keeps track and neutralises malicious code before it latches on to PCs, its Security Labs has discovered a new malicious website, which is distributing malicious code that installs a Trojan Horse on end-users’ machines.

This potentially occurs without user interaction. The site appears to be mirroring a World Cup 2006 Soccer website with the exception that they have a lead story regarding the, now infamous, Zinedine Zidane head-butt incident from the World Cup final against Italy. Upon visiting any of the pages on the site, end-users are potentially infected with a Trojan Horse downloader.

This Trojan Horse downloads additional payload code from the site. The site is using the underground Web Attacker tool kit, which kicks in when a user visits one of the nearly 1,000 sites that are being used to run code without user intervention. A Trojan Horse is then downloaded and run. It can log keystrokes, download additional code or open backdoors on the user’s machine.
Ranbaxy buys GSK’s Spanish generic subsidiary

Hyderabad, July 18: Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., India’s largest pharmaceutical company by sales, said on Tuesday it has acquired the Mundogen generic business of GlaxoSmithKline, in Spain, through Ranbaxy’s Spanish subsidiary, Laboratorios Ranbaxy S.L.

“The Mundogen generic business acquisition from GSK is in line with our M&A strategy to focus on the EU markets where we continue to see growth opportunities. The acquisition will further consolidate our presence in the rapidly growing Spanish generic market and strengthen our product portfolio,” a Ranbaxy statement quoted Malvinder Mohan Singh, CEO and managing director of the company, as saying. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Laboratorios Ranbaxy S.L. was incorporated in February 2004. The company is currently marketing over 40 products in the market, including the recently launched Simvastatine and Ticlopidine, the release said.




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