Infosys loses work from Deutsche Bank 
September 03, 2010
Source:  REUTERS

BANGALORE: Deutsche Bank is moving a portion of its back office processes from Infosys BPO to its captive centre in the city.

Critical processes related to clients' trade and derivatives will move to Deutsche Network Services in Whitefield.

Some 150 people are working on this process. Infosys has another 500-plus BPO executives working for various other processes of Deutsche Bank who will remain with Infosys.

Following the bank's decision, Infosys sent an official communique to the 150 employees giving them the option to leave the company to be with Deutsche Network Services for much higher salaries.

"The salary increment varied from person to person, but many got about 50% increase. Most are accepting this MNC job offer," said a person close to the development.

When contacted, an Infosys spokesperson told TOI, "Clients often move work back and forth and it is only a routine affair." Deutsche Bank could not be reached for a comment.

Mahindras plan big-bang IT consolidation
September 03, 2010
SOURCE : PTI

MUMBAI: The tractor-to-aerospace Mahindra Group, with nearly 100 companies in its fold, is consolidating its entire IT infrastructure and applications. The entire exercise could cost over `100 crore and take more than 500 people — the size of a small IT firm — to run. The consolidation will help the newly-formed group executive board (GEB) in faster decision making since it will have access to information across all the group’s businesses. Moreover, the move may result in major monetary benefits.

“This exercise will bring in synergy across various businesses. The GEB will be able to look at the talent pool across the group and relate to it much better. Earlier, someone who is good may have been recognised and promoted within his division. Now, there will be visibility at group level,” said VS Parthasarathy, group CIO and EVP (Finance and M&A) and member of the GEB. The Mahindra Group has carried out a number of acquisitions over the past few years and the technology consolidation will help integrate these assets into the group faster.

To implement this ambitious project, the group has leveraged the skills of Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam, the two IT firms in its fold, as well as Bristlecone, a smaller group firm in the enterprise software business. “I would call Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam our platinum partners in the exercise,” said Mr Parthasarathy.

The group’s IT infrastructure, which is currently scattered across different cities and countries, is being consolidated in three large data centres — a primary data centre housing all software and applications, a nearshore disaster recovery centre and another recovery centre located in Chennai. The first phase of the project has already gone live at 44 companies, including the flagship Mahindra & Mahindra, and at some of its acquired firms like Punjab Tractors and Kinetic Motors.


The businesses that have not yet been integrated include those which have more complexities like the operations in Germany and Australia, said Mr Parthasarathy.

The group has majority stake in two aerospace companies in Australia and in a components business in Germany through earlier acquisitions. All companies are expected to come under the common IT umbrella by March next year.

The exercise will result in significant benefits, both tangible and intangible, for the group. For one, the group will be able to invest in fewer but more powerful and expensive computers rather than on a number of less powerful systems for individual firms. It will also free up real estate for other activities and result in more effective utilisation of IT systems and manpower. “The monetary benefits will be substantial. We should realise them fully in 2-3 years. But more than anything else, it will help in governance at the group level,” said Mr Parthasarathy.

While centralised procurement, better inventory management and productivity gains, resulting from the consolidation, will help the group more than recover the costs it has incurred for the exercise, the GEB will gain from access to key metrics, financial and otherwise, in a ‘cockpit’. Closure of accounts across the group companies will also be faster as a result of the automation.

“The hardest part of the whole exercise was conceptualising and selling it to various businesses, each of which had their own software and process,” said Mr Parthasarathy. Prior to the implementation, the group went through a rigorous process of discussion and debate. Functional heads of the various businesses, each of which was running its own customised process, met every week to decide on adopting a common process and standardising it.

An operating council comprising CIOs of different businesses was responsible for the execution with the decisions being reviewed at the group level by an apex council, which included the presidents of all the businesses. This, Mr Parthasarathy says was the most challenging part of the exercise as it involved consensus across all individual business units. “But after a time, they were able to see the benefits of sharing best practices,” he added.

VMware's new services to speed up cloud tech use
September 03, 2010
SOURCE: PTI

SAN FRANCISCO: The US-based provider of virtualization software VMware, on Tuesday, unveiled a cloud computing strategy to help companies accelerate adoption of ‘technology as a service’. At its annual VM World 2010 meet in San Francisco, the company introduced three new products, to achieve that goal.

These are:VMware vCloud Director — a model for delivering and consuming technology services across different cloud computing platforms, VMware vShield product that tackles security challenges and VMware vCloud Datacenter Services that offers secure cloud computing services.

These products, says the company, will help enterprises and service providers reap the benefits of cloud computing (that is, use software services via internet, much like consuming grid electricity) while maintaining the control and freedom of choice of the technology they need. Instead of investing in expensive software, enterprises can rent it out on a pay-per-use model on VMware’s cloud platform.

“VMware set out with a vision two years ago to modernise the datacenter and transform IT. This week we are unveiling more components of that vision to bring this new world of ‘IT as a Service’ to reality,” said Paul Martiz, president & CEO, VMware. The company expects its products to help businesses and government to move beyond ‘IT as a cost center’ to a more business-centric IT as a Service model.

“Enterprises are embracing a new model of infrastructure to deliver IT as a service through hybrid cloud computing. The products and services we launch today deliver the agility and economics of the cloud with the security and quality-of-service our customers need,” said Raghu Raghuram, senior VP & GM, virtualization and cloud platform. Unlike previous shifts in IT that required wholesale replacement of infrastructure hardware and software, the VMware vision for infrastructure is based on extending existing investments in hardware and software, enabling companies to achieve better results, at lower costs.

Over 17,000 attendees — analysts, CIOs and customers — gathered here to learn, share and demonstrate virtualization and hybrid cloud computing practices and technologies that enable technology products and applications to be delivered as a service.

(The correspondent attended this conference on an invitation from VMware)