Photo: Som Mittal, Nasscom chief

According to Som Mittal, president of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the country is already witnessing changes in trends that had been anticipated.

The economic activity in the country is apparently speeding up, the technology companies are hiring again, and acquisitions and mergers are on the cards.

On the many acquisitions that the business process outsourcing (BPO) firms are considering, Som Mittal said the BPO industry in India has been mainly eying countries like China and in Europe.

There are come factors, he added, based on which Indian companies look for acquisition, like seeking “to eave their footprints” on the English-speaking regions of the world. India has now attained the window to acquire capabilities in the English-speaking countries, since as much as 80% of the firms at present comes from those regions.

Though the first half of the fiscal has been rather flat, the vector has been right, and hence the anticipation of more growth this year as well as of a double-digit growth in the next fiscal, Mittal told reporters on the sidelines of the India Economic Forum of the World Economic Summit held in New Delhi.

The IT industry, however, is unlikely attain the huge growth rate it had recorded till 2007.

The growth rate of around 30% achieved for an entire decade is very hard to maintain, Som Mittal said. The IT sector, in the next 10-12 years, will get bigger at a compounded annual growth rate of 14% – that is, it is estimated to jump from the $50 billion in 2008 to around $225 billion.

The IT industry can achieve this goal only if it enhances its capabilities to meet the rising demand, Mittal warned, adding that, instead of functioning only in 6 major cities, the IT industry should move to 43 other cities that have been identified.

Even as Nasscom is upbeat about growth in the IT sector returning to good growth, Som Mittal said that it was too early to revise the guidance upwards.

The technology company Accenture has announced that it will raise its staff strength by 8,000 in 2010, mainly in the analytics department.

Infosys BPO, the back-office wing of Infosys Technologies, has said it will hire nearly 2,000 people by the end of this fiscal.

These growth figures were lower than the net profit of 24 per cent, posted in April-June 2009, in comparison to the same quarter in 2008.

Reports say that four operators, including Etisalat, are poised to enter the already crowded Indian market, in 2009.

Tata DoCoMo, a joint venture of  India’s Tata Teleservices Ltd. and Japan’s largest wireless operator NTT DoCoMo Inc, that was launched in India in June 2009, has already stolen a march over Bharti Airtel by signing up more subscribers in the third quarter.

Tata DoCoMo’s plan to charge per second for calls, unlike other operators who charge per minute, has enabled it to garner more subscribers.

Meanwhile, Vodafone’s market share has grown to 17.7 per cent at the end of August 2009 from 17.3 percent during the same period, in 2008.

During the same period, Airtel’s market share fell from 24.5 per cent to 23.6 percent. Reliance, which also cut down its prices, increased its market share from 17.8 per cent to 18.4 per cent over the past one year.

Akhil Gupta, deputy chief executive officer of parent Bharti Enterprises Pvt., is reported to have said that Bharti Airtel is looking at emerging markets and plans to expand its non-mobile businesses, such as data and direct-to-home broadcasting.

Apart from cutting jobs, Versace aims to rationalize production facilities, review its store network, reduce capital investment in 2010, and cut overheads as part of its reorganization plan.

Versace will lay off 350 employees, out of its 1,360 employees working globally.

Versace, famous for its Medusa head logo, is working towards boosting its bottom line in the year 2011. To achieve this goal, Versace has taken certain measures that it will execute in the  middle of 2010.

The company plans to rebuild its Japanese operations and is re-evaluating the entire strategy of the company, said Versace earlier in October 2009.

Design head Donatella Versace, her brother Santo and her daughter Allegra own Versace.

Donatella, who is in charge of the fashion collection designs, is more focused in wearable outfits than Versace’s trademark glitz and gold.

“Trading conditions in the wake of the global financial crisis have been severe and the company expects to make a loss in 2009,” said Gian Giacomo Ferraris, chief executive of Versace, since June 2009.

“No organization can allow a situation like this to continue, especially considering the flat outlook for 2010.”

“It is rather unfortunate that due to the continued economic constraints and business outlook, we do not anticipate that we will have the ability to recall many of our valued associates within the VPP period.”

Around 8,000 employees have become a part of the virtual pool that was formed on June 11, 2009. On that day Vineet Nayyar, CEO, Tech Mahindra had said that the VPP employees will be provided with  basic salary, PF and medical insurance.

The six-month period of VPP will come to an end in December, 2009. Since the company does not have enough projects to accommodate all VPP employees, it has sent a two-month notice to over 5000 employees as per the employment contract.

The reason for the axing is believed to be the lack of enough projects to accommodate all the employees.

A Mahindra Satyam spokesperson denied the news regarding layoffs and said that the company has taken 1,500 associates from the virtual pool.

Elinor Ostrom, Research Professor of Arizona State University in the United States, has become the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences since it was established in 1968. She is also the fifth woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize in 2009 – which is a record in the history of the Nobel Prize.

Also, 2009 was also a very strong year for the United States – with 11 American citizens (some of them with dual nationality) among the 13 winners of Nobel Prizes. The American list includes President Barack Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted that, over the past 3 decades, the work done by Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson had “advanced research in economic governance from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention” and that their research showed that “economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organisation.”

According to the two Nobel laureates, issues of governance have been at the heart of the current global economic crisis. They believe that failure by boards of directors, for example, to “police excessive compensation” or prevent bonuses that reward excessive risk-taking could be considered as an issue of corporate governance.

Elinor Ostrom, working from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, of Indiana University, has focused her career on studying the interaction of people and natural resources. “Going against the common theory, Ostrom proved how common resources can be successfully managed by the groups using it,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in its citation.

The work by Oliver E Williamson, 77, who is at the Walter A Haas School of Business, of the University of California, Berkeley, is centred on the boundaries of the ‘firm’ and the reasons for economic activity inside of firms. He sought to know the answers to these questions: “Why is there so much vertical integration in the marketplace; why don’t all of us just work for ourselves and sign contracts with each other instead of working together inside of a big company?”

Williamson was cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for his studies on how organisations – including companies – are structured and how that “affects the cost of doing business.”

The Academy went on to say the theory of Oliver E Williamson states that “big private corporations exist primarily because they are efficient; they are established since they make owners, workers, customers and suppliers better off than they would be under alternative institutional arrangements.”

According to Williamson, even though large corporations may abuse their power, “it is better to regulate such behavior directly rather than with policies that limit the size of corporations.”

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Elinor Ostrom for her “innovative work” in challenging the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatised. Based on a number of studies of user-managed fish stocks, woods, lakes, pastures and groundwater basins, she concluded that “the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories.”

In one of her remarkable publications in 1990, Elinor Ostrom studied both successful and unsuccessful ways of governing natural resources, fisheries, forests, grazing lands, irrigation system and oil fields that are used by individuals.

The Economics Prize was the last Nobel award to be announced in 2009. The Economics Prize, however, was not one of the original Nobel Prizes, but was later created by the Swedish central bank in memory of Alfred Nobel.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the interest shown by Bloomberg in buying BusinessWeek has “further crowded” the field of potential bidders, and also indicates Bloomberg’s intentions in continuing to expand beyond its core business of providing financial data, news, and analytics to professionals.

Quoting “people familiar with the matter,” The Wall Street Journal reported that the other potential bidders for BusinessWeek included Bruce Wasserstein, the chief executive of the investment bank Lazard Limited and who owns the magazine TheDeal and New York Magazine; ZelnickMedia; Joe Mansueto, founder of Morningstar; and private equity firms Platinum Equity, Warburg Pincus, and OpenGate Capital.

The bids for BusinessWeek will take place on September 15, 2009.

In July 2009, the United States-based publisher McGraw-Hill, which owns BusinessWeek, had said that it was “putting on the block” its financial magazine and also “exploring strategic options” for the magazine.

BusinessWeek, founded in 1929, has a circulation of 936,000 copies in the United States. The magazine’s main competitors in the national business magazine-class are Forbes and Fortune, both of which are published bi-weekly.

As in the case of other United States-based newspapers and magazines, BusinessWeek has been plagued by a sharp decline in revenues from print-advertising, shrinking circulation as well as the shifting of a large number of readers to free online news.

The website of BusinessWeek says that the magazine has 155 editorial employees at its headquarters in New York, 19 correspondents in news bureaus across the United States, and 14 international correspondents in 10 news bureaus.

On the website of BusinessWeek, Jon Fine, the magazine’s media columnist, wrote that Bloomberg had earlier considered buying BusinessWeek but then dropped the idea. It is not clear, Fine added, as to why Bloomberg is once again trying to bid for BusinessWeek.

Jon Fine also wrote on the website that the executives of BusinessWeek and Bloomberg will meet next week in order to obtain “more information on the operations” of BusinessWeek.

McGraw-Hill owns, besides the BusinessWeek magazine, the credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s, McGraw-Hill Education, and the market research company J D Power and Associates.  McGraw-Hill says it had sales worth $6.4 billion in 2008.

Bloomberg, the financial news agency, is considering a bid for BusinessWeek, the business magazine published by McGraw-Hill.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the interest shown by Bloomberg in buying BusinessWeek has “further crowded” the field of potential bidders, and also indicates Bloomberg’s intentions in continuing to expand beyond its core business of providing financial data, news, and analytics to professionals.

Quoting “people familiar with the matter,” The Wall Street Journal reported that the other potential bidders for BusinessWeek included Bruce Wasserstein, the chief executive of the investment bank Lazard Limited and who owns the magazine TheDeal and New York Magazine; ZelnickMedia; Joe Mansueto, founder of Morningstar; and private equity firms Platinum Equity, Warburg Pincus, and OpenGate Capital.

The bids for BusinessWeek will take place on September 15, 2009.

In July 2009, the United States-based publisher McGraw-Hill, which owns BusinessWeek, had said that it was “putting on the block” its financial magazine and also “exploring strategic options” for the magazine.

BusinessWeek, founded in 1929, has a circulation of 936,000 copies in the United States. The magazine’s main competitors in the national business magazine-class are Forbes and Fortune, both of which are published bi-weekly.

As in the case of other United States-based newspapers and magazines, BusinessWeek has been plagued by a sharp decline in revenues from print-advertising, shrinking circulation as well as the shifting of a large number of readers to free online news.

The BusinessWeek website says that the magazine has 155 editorial employees at its headquarters in New York, 19 correspondents in news bureaus across the United States, and 14 international correspondents in 10 news bureaus.

Jon Fine, the magazine’s media columnist, has written on the website of BusinessWeek,  that Bloomberg had earlier considered buying BusinessWeek but then dropped the idea. It is not clear, Fine added, as to why Bloomberg is once again trying to bid for BusinessWeek.

Jon Fine also wrote on the website that the executives of BusinessWeek and Bloomberg will meet next week in order to obtain “more information on the operations” of BusinessWeek.

McGraw-Hill owns, besides the BusinessWeek magazine, the credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s, McGraw-Hill Education, and the market research company J D Power and Associates.

McGraw-Hill says it had sales worth $6.4 billion in 2008.

The cast and crew of Bidaai, which is being telecast on Star Plus TV during the weekdays, were in Kerala for 10 days to shoot the honeymoon episodes of the newlywed sisters, who are also the protagonists in this primetime serial. Bidaai, falling in the Hindi general entertainment genre, is the story of two sisters, Sadhna and Ragini. Life is pleasant for Sadhna as she is beautiful but society is harsh on Ragini, who faces a lot more challenges because she is not good-looking.

Filming for the episodes took place in Munnar, Thekkady, Allepey, Kumarakom and Kovalam. Location scenes take in tea plantations, a beach scene and the romantic houseboat in the backwaters. The honeymoon episodes, will be shown over six instalments of 30 minutes each, covering terrestrial and satellite television starting Monday, 23 February on Star Plus channel.

Television viewing is considered the greatest single domestic pastime in India and the influence of visual media combined with a popular series is a ‘pull’ factor for tourism destinations. “We want to raise the profile of Kerala as a honeymoon destination with the domestic market,” said Sivasankar, Director Kerala Tourism.

Kerala’s coast and countryside is a huge part of our appeal as a destination for couples and the honeymoon episodes will  remind viewers of the landscapes that Kerala is so  famous for and motivate them to visit the place” he added.

As man as 75,912,50 domestic tourists visited Kerala in 2008, posting a 14 per cent increase compared to the previous year. A trip on a houseboat and the backwaters of Kerala are the most popular activities for visitors. The houseboat of Kerala was nominated as one of the most perfect places in the world to propose to your love one, by the influential National Geographic Adventure magazine.

Kerala is still one of the most popular destinations for Indian travelers and foreigners – and not just for honeymoons either. However, the economic recession has hit the travel industry in Kerala badly with houseboats often idle and homestays deserted. If things continue lkike this for too long, while it may make it a lot more affordable for tourists form across India, the industry itself may face serious trouble and losses.

The pink slips would mean that the company will see almost three percent of its overall workforce move out of its rolls. Announcing the decision, AMD said it would go ahead and split the company into two businesses. While one of them will focus on microprocessor design, the other will go into manufacture of microprocessors.

AMD will launch a new company called The Foundry Company by merging itself and Advanced Technology Investment. This company is expected to create a new US-based semiconductor manufacturing company in New York. It is being said that The Foundry Company, which would bring in huge investments from Mubadala Development and will concentrate on the growing demand for independent foundry production capabilities.  I fact, the new division is seen as a strategy toward reducing further losses. The division may also help AMD compete with more vigour against top Intel contenders, said a report.

Even as the job cuts are being seen as a concern, the New York facility is expected to create more than 1,400 direct jobs and generate an additional 5,000 jobs in the region.

The chipmaker giant made the job cut announcement at its meeting to make public its third quarter earnings, which stood at $1.776 billion, including process technology license revenue of $191 million. There was an increase of 32 percent in the third quarter as against the second quarter of 2008 and 14 percent compared with the same quarter of 2007. AMD had reported a loss of $67 million in the third quarter of 2008. Attributing the decrease to lower-than-expected sales across all business segments, AMD said that it would adjust its cost structure by reducing its workforce by approximately 10 per cent by the end of the third quarter of 2008. This could mean that more job cuts are in the anvil.

The global economic crisis started with the US housing recession. Housing prices crashed after a sustained, major boom. The assets (houses) which supported the securities (mortgage-backed securities) lost value. Banks which held the rotten securities as collateral, or as investment paper, found themselves sitting on crap, which they thought were valuable investment.

Now, the American government and its central bank, in concert with global central banks, is trying to bail out the sick system. Whatever bailout they do will be of no value until housing prices — the root of the problem — pick up. Now, the US houses prices are at rock bottom. Houses available in the US suburbs are cheaper than in India.

Houses bought on subprime loans have been taken over by US banks and are now foreclosed. And now, there are no takers for those houses, though banks want to sell them. Because, Americans have no money to buy houses. The US has one of the lowest savings rates in the world. That is, they live on perpetual credit — the government, as well as the people. Whereas, countries in Asia have high savings rates. Japan has about 40% savings. India has over 30%.

This means Indians and their Asian peers have lots of money they can spare for investing.

That is what one should tap – that is where the solution to the global financial crisis lies. Out there, in Asia.

If the US opens the channels for Asians – and others – to invest in the collapsed US mortgage market, the market will pick up slowly and the housing recession will be over – say in a year or so. Already, it is the Asian funds – those like Temasek, soverign funds from Dubai, UAE and Qatar – which are buying stakes in cash-starved bluechip banks like Citigroup and Fortis. The idea is to channelise the individual wealth of cash-surplus nations to cash-starved America. America can facilitate the process easier by adding incentives — like a green card for someone who invests in US property for 10 years, easier visa norms for property investors, waiver of capital gains taxes for property purchases. The details are best left to experts.

Once wealth starts flowing in on its own, no government-led cash injection will be required. There will be no need to compromise the principles of capitalism, which all governments are doing by nationalisations, recapitalisations, and overregulation. The incoming money will breathe life into the dead American housing market. This will kickstart the dead housing market in US. And the revival will begin from there.