LATEST NEWS

 Dell's novel launch : Precision M6400 Mobile Workstation

Dell Inc, a multinational company which is popular for its personal computers and other computer-related products has launched the next sequel to its earlier workstation series Precision M6300 laptop, the novel model is termed as Precision M6400 Laptop.

The distinctive features of the mobile workstation includes Intel Core 2 Quad processor running at 2.54GHz, plus 4GB of DDR3 RAM memory, and a graphics card powered by NVIDIA – Quadro FX 2700M with 512MB. The Precision M640 is a 17-inch laptop possess 1,920 x 1,200 pixels screen resolution with WiFi (802.11 a/g/n), Bluetooth, Ultra-Wideband, GPS, USB ports, Firewire, and eSATA.

As per reports, the new mobile work station Precision M6400 would be a good selection for all.

 

 Ford's Volvo Cars to expand job cuts

Volvo Car Corporation, owned by US automaker Ford Motor Co, plans to shed up to 1,000 jobs in addition to sweeping cuts already announced, Swedish television reported on Sunday without disclosing its sources.

A spokeswoman for the company said she could neither comment on nor deny the report by Swedish public service channel SVT.

The new cuts would mainly affect white-collar employees at the carmaker which is grappling with weak market demand and surging raw material costs, SVT said.

"We are in a tough spot, everybody knows that," Volvo spokeswoman Maria Bohlin said.

Volvo Cars announced plans in June to slash 2,000 jobs and shut down the third shift at its Torslanda auto plant in southwest Sweden at the end of this year.

Only two weeks ago it said it would bring forward the closure of the shift to October instead of December and estimated it would also need to cut an additional 900 jobs next year due to a recent "dramatic worsening" of market conditions in Europe. The exact size of the new job cuts had not yet been decided, SVT reported.

 

 Citi retail head to take over as Aviva chief

TR Ramachandran, head of Citi’s retail bank, will take over as the chief executive of Aviva India Life Insurance. Mr Ramachandran will be the first Indian professional to head the joint venture as till now, the India operations were headed by senior executives on deputation from Aviva.

Mr Ramachandran will take over from Bert Paterson whose term comes to an end shortly. The challenge before him would be to leverage brand awareness and translate it into growth in business. The move has surprised both insurance and banking circles as Mr Ramachandran is a high-profile banker and Citi has the largest retail portfolio among foreign banks in India. He put in his papers in Citi few days ago.

Mr Ramachandran has been a career Citibanker who joined the bank in 1989. Before taking over as head of retail bank, he was the head of cards. Incidentally, he is the second Citibanker to head a local insurance company.

Rajiv Jamkhedkar, who was the head of personal lending and Citibusiness, SME segment, is now the CEO of Aegon Religare Life Insurance.

Two other insurance CEOs, Nitin Chopra of Bharti Axa Life and Ajay Bimbhet of Royal Sundaram, earlier were retail bankers at ABN Amro and Deutsche Bank, respectively. In recent months, with more than half a dozen new players coming in, salaries in the insurance sector have been moving north.

Although Aviva is UK’s largest insurer, it has been lagging behind in the Indian market as it chose a strategy that was different from other players. While most leading joint ventures are leveraging the strength of their joint venture partners, Aviva has decided to run the business on its own with Indian partner Dabur playing a dormant role. The company also chose to retain only the UK parent’s name and has made huge investments in promoting the global brand in India.

However, its sales received a setback after the insurance regulator banned complex unit linked products which were the mainstay of Aviva’s business until the ban. Last fiscal, the company also suffered because its main strategy of selling insurance through bancassurance partnership took a knock.

One of its main distributors, Canara Bank, chose to get into the insurance business on its own, while another — Centurion Bank — was acquired. Since then, the company has increased focus on agents. Improving the company’s distribution will be a challenge for the new CEO.

 

 INFLATION WILL REMAIN IN DOUBLE DIGITS TILL 2009

Inflation will remain in double digits until the end of January in part due to higher prices of manufactured products, the chief statistician said on Thursday.

Annual inflation rate was at 12.14 percent on Sept. 6. Data later on Thursday is expected to show it rose to 12.33 percent as at Sept. 13, a poll of analysts found.

Source: Economic Times

 Infosys to tie up with other IT cos to train graduates

Infosys Technologies, the country’s second-largest IT services company, is in talks with leading IT firms to jointly offer training programmes to produce more industry-ready graduates. The company hopes to finalise such initiatives by December, beginning with 1,000 colleges across the country.

Such programmes are run by various IT companies on their own. Infosys has a programme called Campus Connect which covers over 500 engineering colleges and includes faculty and student training apart from assistance for industry-oriented curriculum.

Infosys’ initiative would bring together the biggest recruiters in the IT industry and lead to more investments in hitherto untapped colleges, particularly in smaller towns, said Infosys VP and group HRD head Nandita Gurjar. “There needs to be a consensus on what we will do together and what separately,” she said.

IT companies have been working with colleges and schools in order to produce more corporate-ready graduates . Such programmes would, in the long run, reduce the time and money spent on training these graduates on their joining the company. Infosys , for instance, spent $170 million on training in the last financial year.

Infosys, which also runs a training programme for non engineering colleges for its BPO recruitments, plans to cover both engineering and non-engineering colleges under the joint programme. While IT companies have mainly tapped engineering colleges for recruitment, they are also hiring arts and science graduates, either for their BPO operations, or to deploy them in non-technical roles in their technology operations.

The 502 colleges under Infosys’ Campus Connect would also come under the joint initiative. “We would be able to invest more in infrastructure in these colleges,” Ms Gurjar said. Infosys plans to hire 22,000-25 ,000 people this year, against 35,000 last year. Of these, nearly 60% would be fresh graduates. Infosys decides on lateral hiring in the third quarter depending on the economic environment.

 Indian insurance sector to touch Rs.20 bn mark by 2010

New Delhi, Aug 15 (IANS) India's insurance business will reach a level of Rs.20 billion in the next two years from the current level of Rs.500 billion, according to an industry lobby. 'A growth of over 200 percent is likely to be seen in Indian insurance business by 2009-10 in which private insurance business would grow at 140 percent in view of aggressive marketing techniques,' said a report by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).

'The state-owned insurance companies' growth rate will be 35-40 percent,' the study said. According to Assocham, in the last couple of years, the insurance sector had grown by 175 percent and the trend will emerge still better because of huge potential. On account of intense marketing strategies adopted by private insurance players, the market share of state-owned insurance companies like GIC (General Insurance Corp), LIC (Life Insurance Corp) and others have already come down to 70 percent in last four-five years from over 97 percent, and more intense competition is likely to be witnessed in the near future,' Assocham president Sajjan Jindal said. 'The private insurance players' entry into insurance sector is still restricted since India has yet to open it up liberally.

But even then, their rate of return to their subscribers and policy holders is estimated at about 35 percent against 20 percent of domestic insurance companies,' Jindal added. Moreover, the state-run companies have limited number of policies to offer to their subscribers while the private players offer many more policies with premium amount and maturity period, he added. Interestingly, the private sector insurance players have started exploring the rural markets in which until recently the state-run companies had the monopoly. The chamber has projected that in rural markets, the share of private insurance players would increase substantially. At present, India's life insurance premium, as a percentage of GDP, was 1.8 percent against 5.2 percent in the US, 6.5 percent in Britain and eight percent in South Korea.

 World Bank job up for grabs

One job which many bureaucrats have their eyes set on is that of India’s nominee to the board of the World Bank. As the executive director Dhanendra Kumar’s term comes to an end, the names of his potential successors are doing the rounds. One prominent name is that of MS Srinivasan, who retired recently as petroleum secretary.

A couple of other serving secretaries to the Government of India are also said to be in the running for this job. Executive decisions Last week, the government obtained the consent of some of the general managers in state-owned banks for being posted as executive directors. Those in the list include Bank of Baroda’s BA Prabhakar, three officers from Bank of India — RK Bakshi, Jagdish Pai and S Raman, Dena Bank’s MG Sanghvi and Corporation Banks’ M Narendra.

The consent of Mr Prabhakar and Mr Narendran has been taken for the post of ED in Bank of India, where there are two vacancies. Mr Bakshi’s consent has been taken for the post of ED in Bank of Baroda replacing SC Gupta — who is tipped to join United Bank as CMD. Mr Sanghvi’s name is being considered for ED’s post in Bank of Maharashtra. Internal memo Kotak Mahindra bank has decided to appoint an internal candidate as CEO for its asset reconstruction company. Sharad Bhatia, known for his impressive performance in buying and resolving bad loans in the bank has been asked to head the ARC company.

Insiders say that with Kotak entering the ARC business competitors may have to gear up as the bank has already been active in ARC. Meanwhile, IFCI-promoted ARC, Asset care Enterprise (ACE), has sought applications for a CEO. Doesn’t ad up Every advertisement and every piece of product literature issued in the insurance industry is scrutinised by the insurance regulator. Yet there are occasions where some advertisements appear to have slipped through.

One private life insurer has bought advertising space in school notebooks and advertisements urge the youngsters to pick up their father’s mobile to answer a simple question which will understandably lead to an insurance pitch. Another advertisement for a health insurance product portrays a young man being examined by a dentist although the company does not cover dental treatment. Once upon a time There is a listed company which has a vast influence on almost every aspect of Reserve Bank of India’s regulations. Some of the new regulations have actually been drafted by this listed entity and later implemented.

Senior central bankers would have already guessed the company — the Bank for International Settlements — the Basel-headquartered international association of central banks. For those who are aghast that shares of such a premier institution can be bought on exchanges it would be interesting to note that RBI’s shares were listed and could be traded before Independence.

 Dabur to invest Rs 250 cr on expansion…

FMCG major Dabur India said it will invest over Rs 250 crore in the next one year to set up a greenfield facility for manufacturing a range of consumer goods and upgrade its existing facilities. Dabur also has plans to hike prices of its consumer and healthcare products, keeping in mind the intense inflationary pressure. "We are planning to set up a new manufacturing facility in India entailing a capital expenditure of about Rs 150 crore, which would be made in the next fiscal. Besides, we will be undertaking another Rs 100 crore of capital expenditure this fiscal at our existing facilities," Dabur India Chief Executive officer Sunil Duggal told analysts.

He, however, did not divulge details about the greenfield facility planned by the company. Sources said Dabur could be looking to set up the new facility in one of the hill states, where it can expect tax breaks. This unit is expected to manufacture a range of new personal care products. Dabur is expected to hike prices in the core FMCG business under its consumer care division by 7 per cent and in the consumer health division by 8-9 per cent to tide over the inflationary trend, Duggal said. "There would, however, be no hike in price of our food products," he said.

Duggal said the company is also expanding its product portfolio with plans afoot to launch an ayurvedic skin care range. Dabur India had forayed into the skin care market last year with the launch of rose-based skin care products under the 'Gulabari' brand name.

 Patent-obsessed big pharma joining hands with generics competitors

Within days of Japanese company Daiichi Sankyo acquiring Ranbaxy Laboratories, another innovator (essentially, patent holders of blockbuster drugs) company Sanofi Aventis of France said it is making a bid to acquire Czech generics company Zentiva. Does this signal a paradigm shift in the global pharmaceutical space?

Last month’s surprise decision of the Ranbaxy promoters to exit the country’s largest pharma company has led to many observers and companies discussing the impact of the decision in the Indian pharma space. Questions are being asked whether this could mark the end of pure generic companies — a model Indian companies have championed for long. Rumours of a few other Indian pharma companies looking to sell out to global majors are now doing rounds.

In a move that surprised many, the promoter family of Ranbaxy decided to sell their entire 34.8% stake in the company to the little-known company in India for at Rs 737 per share or around Rs 10,000 crore ($2.4 billion), a 31.4% premium over the company’s closing share price on the day of the announcement

Goldman Sachs buy real estate in Moscow

Global investors Goldman Sachs, in their first realty acquisition in Russia, have bought a $300 million gated community in the capital, a Russian business daily said on Friday. The deal, carried out through Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds, a Goldman Sachs Group affiliate, is the group's first real estate acquisition in Russia, Kommersant reported.

The global financiers bought Pokrovsky Hills, a 260-unit townhouse community in the northwest part of the capital city, from another US firm, AIG Global Real Estate. The community is situated in a hilly and wooded area adjacent to the Anglo-American School in the northwest outskirts of the Russian capital. Major tenants include several embassies, as well as Nestle, Maersk Sealand, Shell, Conoco, and Procter & Gamble, among others.

 US to set up Higher Education Council in India

With private sector to facilitate greater industry-academy collaboration in educational projects in the country, the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is setting up a Higher Education Council in India. "The Council, which is in the exploratory stage, will be the first of its kind. Its functions will include, among others, providing academic suggestions and identification of projects in higher education," US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Goli Ameri said.

BECA would invest in the project and it would be taken up for discussions at the meeting of the US-India CEO Forum scheduled in October, Ameri, who is also the head of the bureau, said. She said BECA, which initiated the English Access Microscholarship programme to provide courses on the language to underprivileged children in 50 countries, will make the course available on the internet soon. The programme also allows students to study Chinese, Korean, Persian, Turskish and Russain, she said.

 Nomura to acquire stake in Indian digital media

Leading investment bank Nomura Holdings Inc. said Friday it has agreed to contribute USD 16 million to India's digital media and entertainment provider Real Image Media Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The financing deal will allow Nomura to support the booming consumer services and media entertainment industry in India and thus contribute to the country's economic growth, the bank said.

Established in 1986, Real Image provides digital cinema technology solutions that address not just the needs of cinema houses for digital cinema equipment and content, but also encompass the needs of the media and in-cinema advertising industry in India, according to Nomura. Real Image is spearheading the evolution of India's film industry from analog to digital cinema.

 Intel in talks with telecom operators for WiMax rollout

Betting big on WiMax in India, chip giant Intel is in talks with telecom operators to enable the growth of WiMax ecosystem through its products for boosting the penetration of wireless broadband in the world’s fastest-growing telecom market. The US-based company is working with ODMs (original device manufacturers) to evolve new products like WiMax USB dongle, mobile internet devices (MIDs) besides WiMax notebooks with an aim to have wireless broadband networks running by the first quarter of 2009 in India.

The idea is to utilise existing telecom tower, power and fiber backhaul infrastructure of operators to ensure faster roll out of WiMax networks at the lowest costs and time-to-market. Like the USB dongle, a similar PCM express WiMax card will come from Intel’s ODMs. It’ll be a PC add-on card. Laptops will also evolve to have mobile internet,” Intel’s MD, emerging market, Wimax program office, C S Rao said. “We are talking to operators to evolve good device partnership models with them. India is the market for Intel.

If we are able to add even one-tenth of the 8million-9million subscribers being added every month, it will be huge. Volumes in this market are going to be significantly high,” he said. WiMax or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access is a wireless communication technology, which can offer high speed connectivity in about 50 km radius. Globally, 484 WiMax products are available for commercial use. While a customer premise equipment (CPE, which resides in the user’s premises) is available for around $100 (Rs 4200), a WiMax notebook from Taiwanese technology major ASUS can be bought for as low as $400 (Rs 16,800).

An ecosystem of products and infrastructure is crucial for the success of any new technology and WiMax seems to be ready on these counts. Right now, India has around 4.5 m broadband subscribers, mostly through copper wire. The targeted user base is 20 million by 2020. “With WiMax, the target may be achieved a little earlier because of high demand and existing ecosystem. Intel has strong distribution channels in India. All those will be used to proliferate WiMax devices,” he said. In India, Tata Communications (earlier VSNL), Reliance Communications and public sector BSNL are strong proponents of WiMax. “Logistics of wireless broadband roll out are much more easier and cost effective. Telecom infrastructure, like towers can be used for WiMax, resulting in sharing of costs between more parties,” he said. Comparing WiMax with 3G (third generation), which is a competing technology, Mr Rao said WiMax will offer three times more speed and will be cheaper. Operators like Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular are betting big on 3G.

While 3G-enabled handsets are already available in India, the launch of Apple’s 3G iPhone is expected to formally ring in the rollout of 3G in the country. “3G has the capability to offer high-speed data services but doesn’t have the scalability. You need more base stations for offering 3G at the same capacity of total bandwidth and with this, the capex per subscriber goes up. And if you add more subscribers, the speed goes down. WiMax is a more cost-effective and efficient technology,” he added.

 Consumer durable companies ride on infrastructure boom

Airports Authority of India is upgrading some 35 nonmetro airports with a total investment of Rs 7,000 crore. Hotel industry predicts the country needs an additional 1.25 lakh rooms to meet the growing demand of tourists. Jones Lang Lasalle Meghraj says 328 shopping malls are scheduled to come up in India by 2010. India’s infrastructure boom has opened a door of opportunity for consumer durable companies, whose institutional business (business to business) is zooming annually at 40% as compared to the 10% growth rate of retail business (business to consumer).

After fighting it out in the retail segment, consumer durable companies are vying for corporate attention. Consider the case of LG Electronics. Five years ago, its B2B business stood at Rs 50 crore. This has now become a Rs 400 crore division. Air conditioning company Blue Star has identified airport air conditioning as a major growth area, with the firm bagging 11 airport projects valued at Rs 66 crore, earlier this month. “Though retail business continues to be the appliances and electronics firm’s mainstay, institutional business provides huge growth opportunities, despite wafer-thin margins,’’ said an industry source.

Companies look at institutional sales as a brand-building strategy. “The benefit that accrues is the brand’s visibility in large public venues like shopping malls, airports, railway stations and hotels,’’ said TCL India Holdings deputy marketing manager Sudhanshu Bhandari. The Chinese company too has seen its volumes from institutional business rise by 15-20 %.

 LEHMAN BROTHERS FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY - 2,500 Indians may lose jobs; markets rocked

US INVESTMENT giant Lehman Brothers on Monday said it has gone bankrupt amid a worsening credit crisis in the home country, while rival Merrill Lynch, also bitten by the same bug, managed to find a buyer. The news roiled markets worldwide, including India where the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex plunged 850 points, or 6.1per cent, in intra-day trading. It later recovered halfway to close at 13, 531 points. But Lehman and Merrill Lynch's India connection goes much beyond stock swings.Both companies have been rapidly expanding operations here, besides hiring aggressively in India to shore up talent for such key bases as New York and London. Lehman currently employs about 2,500 people in India, most of whom run the risk of losing their jobs. Merrill has about 600 people here."We have not been told anything as yet, but everyone thinks it's a matter of weeks before we are asked to pack up," said a Mumbai based Lehman executive, who oversees back-office support for the company's operations in Sydney and Tokyo.Lehman s decision to file the bankruptcy came after talks of either possible merger with British bank Barclays or from the US Fedoral Reserve bank a ruling the weekend. Under US laws, a company filing for bankruptcy protection faces either reorganisation or liquidation. Liquidation will drive down share prices of the 18 companies, including Spice Telecom and Edelweiss Capital, where Lehman holds more than 1 per cent in equity.The jolt comes just as easing crude prices and softening inflation were beginning to instill confidence in investors.

But we will continue to hire at the shopfloor level as we are expanding rapidly," Bijou Kurien, president and chief executive (lifestyle), Reliance Retail, said. A mid-level employee would typically have between four and eight years of experience and salaries could range between Rs 8 lakh and Rs 20 lakh. The retail sector is also expected to see some rationalisation in salary levels. Increments this year are expected to hover around 10-15 % compared to an average 25% last year.

The retail sector is also in a cautious mood now because of the depressed macroeconomic environment and high rentals severely impacting consumer spending and growth plans, respectively. In fact, there is a ready pool of talent waiting to be absorbed as several small brands struggle to survive and employees are restless to move from companies that have not been performing too well. Retailers agree that they are now getting more job applications than ever before and suggest that companies should now implement more aggressive retention strategies. "This is a good time to hire talent at sensible salaries," Shailesh Chaturvedi, CEO, Tommy Hilfiger India, says.

Echoing the view, Benetton India managing director Sanjeev Mohanty remarks that people are now ready to join companies with fewer demands. The industry, however, will continue to see front-end jobs growing at a fast clip. In the next two-three years, according to the Retailers Association of India, at least two lakh people would be required by the industry , a major chunk of the jobs being on the shop floor. According to Team lease, companies are likely to increase the scope of work of existing employees. “Companies seem to have gone into a consolidation phase in the last three months. We see this continuing over the next quarter also. They will look at increasing productivity from the current pool,” says Sampath Shetty, vice-president , Team Lease Services.