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Bharti, IBM ink $750 million outsourcing deal
Exporters’ SOS to govt on rising rupee value |
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Launch of Dada-Dadi bonds postponed
Samtel standoff continues
Monsanto claims better yields from BT cotton
Care for tea? Try cola
‘Feel Good’ a US stock exchange term, says Digvijay
EU ‘helpless’ on visa norms
Rebellion forces Infineon CEO out
Madonna’s firm sues Warner Music
Exim Bank credit line for Angola
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Bharti, IBM ink $750 million outsourcing deal New Delhi, March 26 Based on estimates agreed between both parties, the total deal for the first five years is estimated to be in the range of $250 to 275 million, while for a 10-year period the total deal is likely to be in the range of $700 to 750 million. Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises Sunil Bharti Mittal termed it as a “first-of-a-kind initiative” and “redefine the existing paradigms in the telecom industry”. The business transformation will involve outsourcing BTVL’s hardware, software and IT services requirements to IBM. This includes all customer-facing IT applications, such as billing, customer relationship management (CRM) and data warehousing. In addition, IBM will service BTVL’s internal-facing applications, for example, intranet, e-mail and online collaboration. On the infrastructure front, IBM will consolidate BTVL’s data centres, IT help desks and enhance its disaster recovery capabilities. Under the provisions of the agreement, around 200 employees currently involved in operation and maintenance of the IT infrastructure of Bharti will be transferred to IBM. The agreement specifies that payments made to IBM will be linked to the percentage of revenues generated by BTVL and pre-defined service level agreements. “The collaboration with IBM will draw an IT road map with the state-of-the-art infrastructure to support our existing and new business operations”, Mr Mittal said. At present, Bharti spends about Rs 200 crore annually on IT which is about 5 per cent of its annual revenue of Rs 4,000 crore. IBM will also deploy a service provider delivery environment, allowing Bharti the flexibility to introduce the latest in-voice, data and content-based services to its customers. IBM India has identified BTVL as a preferred supplier of telecommunications services, such as bandwidth, satellite connectivity, last-mile wireless and wireline access, and national and international long distance communications solutions. “We will enable Bharti Televentures to adapt to changing market conditions and increase speed-to-market of new innovative offerings for customers”, the General Manager (Communications), IBM, Ms Colleen Arnold said. Mr Mittal said a capital expenditure of Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 crore is being planned by BTVL for the financial year 2004-05, primarily to meet its roll-out commitments in seven new circles. “The capital expenditure will include our expansion in six new circles this year. And our current customer base of seven million will touch 25 million over the next two years”, he said. |
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Exporters’ SOS to govt on rising rupee value New Delhi, March 26 They have called upon the Central Government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to intervene at the earliest. “Otherwise it would affect the growth of exports in the next quarter,” they said. In fact, the RBI has so far declined to intervene claiming that appreciation of rupee had neither affected the exports of the country, nor had any adverse affect on the Indian economy. The exporters are apprehending that the rupee may appreciate by 5-10 per cent in the next few months. Mr Rafeeque Ahmed, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), however, said: “The rupee has breached the Rs 45 level against the US dollar by 20 paise, recording a 44-month low. It is now frightening the exporters as their profit margins have declined to less than 5 per cent.” He claimed if the government failed to take corrective steps soon, the textile exporters would lose their competitive edge against China and Vietnam, which had pegged their currencies to the US dollar. “The textile exporters of Ludhiana and Tirupur are also facing stiff competition from Pakistan, which have recently depreciated its currency,” he said. Since exporters were unable to pass on the increased costs to the buyers, some of them were even shifting to more lucrative domestic market. Mr S.B. Mohapatra, Secretary, Textiles, maintained that the Indian textile exporters were finding it hard to keep pace with the appreciation of rupee value. “Instead of allowing the Indian currency to appreciate, the government should rather encourage slow depreciation of the currency to boost exports from the country,” he said. The Apparel Export Promotion Council and Engineering Export Promotion Council have also called upon the government to check the appreciation of the rupee value. They said since the import content in the textile and light engineering goods exports was not so high, they had not benefited from the “fall in cost of imports.” Rather, their profit margins have come down by about 10 per cent.” According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the exports have maintained their growth despite appreciation of rupee value, but it was only at the cost of increase in business volumes. Had the rupee not appreciated during the past few months, the growth in exports would have been much higher. The PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) has also suggested to the RBI to intervene more actively in the foreign exchange market to limit further appreciation of the rupee. It has argued since China, India’s main competitor in export market, was keeping its currency at “artificially lower” rate, Indian exporters would not be able to compete for long. |
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Export momentum to be maintained, says CII The Indian industry is confident that the current
momentum in growth of exports will be maintained during 2004-05, a CII survey has found. The industry has also sought simplification of procedures and plans to deal with appreciating Rupee in order to achieve desired growth, it said. Respondents believed that 18 per cent growth achieved in 2002-03 could be sustained in the current fiscal (2003-04) and over 41 per cent of respondents forecast growth in excess of 20 per cent in the next fiscal, according to the survey released here. Indian exports during April-February of 2003-04 grew 14.75 per cent to US dollar 53.072 billion dollar as against 46.250 billion dollar in the corresponding period of the previous year, according to government data.
— PTI |
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Launch of Dada-Dadi bonds postponed
New Delhi, March 26 “There will be no launch of Dada-Dadi bonds on April 1. The committee reviewing the small savings instruments needs more time. The time has been extended to May 31,” Finance Ministry sources said today. Finance Minister Jaswant Singh had announced the launch of Dada-Dadi bonds in his interim Budget to give pensioners another option to earn high return in an otherwise falling interest rate era. “The postponement of Dada-Dadi bonds has nothing to do with the elections,” they said, adding the bonds cannot be out of line with the existing small savings instruments and priced in isolation. The committee on small savings, headed by RBI Deputy Governor Rakesh Mohan, is yet to decide on the returns from the proposed bonds. Though the Finance Minister had earlier indicated that Dada-Dadi bonds will co-exist with the LIC’s Varishtha Pension Bima Yojana, the committee would consider the implication of having two separate schemes for senior citizens. The committee would also review whether to allow more than one family member to invest in Varishtha, which offers 9.0 per cent assured return to pensioners. The government has provided Rs 150 crore in the Budget as interest subsidy to the LIC for Varishtha.
— PTI |
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Samtel standoff continues Chandigarh, March 26 The irked workers were protesting against the management’s decision of not revising their wages and further not letting them resume work, even as they are taking work from the temporary workers. Union president Suresh Kumar alleged that the management was violating the rules of the Labour Commission by ignoring the rightful claims of the regular employees. He said machines were still being taken out on the pretext of repair, but these were being used elsewhere to ensure that the production work did not suffer. Three of the machines were taken out today. The Civil Judge, Solan, had on March 23 directed the parties to maintain status quo till further orders. The union had, however, sought a stay with regard to the movement of machinery and other property from the factory premises. The Business Head of the company, Mr Alok Chatterjee, said they had only declared a partial lock-out and the administrative staff and temporary workers have been carrying out their duties in routine ever since then. The Labour Commissioner, Himachal government, Mr Bharat Khera, confirmed that conciliation efforts were on and the issue was likely to be resolved. |
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Monsanto claims better yields from BT cotton Mumbai, March 26 Releasing a survey conducted by ACNielsen ORG-MARG on behalf of the company, MMB claimed that the Bollgard cotton seeds result in “better
yields, reduction in pesticide sprays against bollworms and higher profits” for farmers. Presenting surveys conducted in six states, MMB says cotton production per acre increases by 30 per cent on use of the Bollgard cotton seeds. The company further said that farmers earned increased profits to the tune of Rs 3126 per acre. MMB’s survey comes amidst reports in the past that BT cotton introduced in the Indian agricultural sector has failed to deliver results. |
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Care for tea? Try cola
New Delhi, March 26 PepsiCo India said today that it had begun test-marketing tea and coffee (both hot and cold versions) through vending machines in Delhi in a joint venture with Hindustan Lever. “We have begun test-marketing tea and coffee through vending machines in Delhi. This is a joint venture with HLL wherein we will provide them Aquafina water and vending machines while Hindustan Lever will give us the technology,” the Executive Director of Pepsi Foods, Mr Subroto Chattopadhyay, told reporters here. He said tea would be under the brand name of Lipton, while coffee would carry HLL brand name Brew. The Vice-President of Coca-Cola India, Mr Sunil Gupta said: “We do not have iced tea and coffee as yet but we plan to launch these through vending machines shortly.” Besides entering the tea-coffee segment, PepsiCo is also evaluating whether to launch other non-carbonated products from among the large global portfolio. Among the products being studied for a possible launch are sports drink ‘Gatorade’ and juice blends, which may come under brand name ‘Twister’. Mr Chattopadhyay said the company’s focus in non-carbonated segment would be on developing more products which suit the needs of children. “Juice is an area where a lot can be done. For example, we could have smoothies (which have yogourt as well as juice) and other juice-based drinks,” he said, adding that two new juice blends would hit the market next month. “Three new plants for bulk water are coming up at Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai. Each is a franchisee operation with close to a million dollar investment in each,” Mr Chattopadhyay said. He also announced the association of Pepsi’s juice brand Tropicana with the International Jumping Competition organised by the Indian Army. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola said today that it would be investing up to $ 70 million this year along with its bottlers in expanding capacity, while announcing a slew of new launches including a new Coke variant called Coke Vanilla and two new variants in soft drink concentrate Sunfill. “We, along with our bottlers, will invest up to 70 million dollars this year to expand capacity, both at front end and back end. This means increasing distribution outlets by 24 per cent, covering additional 40,000 villages and expanding bottling capacity,” Mr Gupta said here. He also divulged the company’s plan to launch Coke Vanilla in India by early next month, with the company yet to decide on the price point and packaging of this product.
— PTI |
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‘Feel Good’ a US stock exchange term, says Digvijay
Raipur, March 26 Speaking at a press meet here, he said the BJP slogan on “Feel Good’ factor has a foreign touch and its “India Shining” advertisement campaign was entrusted to a foreign company. Dismissing ‘Feel Good’ factor and ‘India Shining’ as mere poll propaganda, the former chief minister said the situation on the ground was totally different because of many issues, including price rise, institutionalisation of corruption and communalism. He said the scam in the Unit Trust of India (UTI), with which about 2.5 crore families had invested their hard-earned money and the corruption scandals linking Defence Minister George Fernandes, former BJP President Bangaru Laxaman and former union minister Dilip Singh Judeo clearly indicated BJP’s tolerance towards corruption. — UNI |
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EU ‘helpless’ on visa norms New Delhi, March 26 |
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Rebellion forces Infineon CEO out
Munich, March 26 Schumacher, chief executive since the firm was spun off by Siemens in 2000, resigned immediately and was replaced in an interim capacity by Supervisory Board Chairman Max Dietrich Kley, former finance chief at chemicals giant BASF, Infineon Technologies AG said in a statement. Supervisory board member Dieter Scheitor told Reuters Schumacher had infuriated the board by making thousands of job cuts, promoting a performance culture, outsourcing more and more of Infineon’s business, and repeatedly threatening to move the company’s headquarters abroad. “Another ground was his authoritian management style,” he added. The company declined to comment on the reasons behind Schumacher’s departure but denied market rumours of any accounting problems and said business was running according to plan. Schumacher himself was also reluctant to talk. “I’m in a meeting,” he said.
— Reuters |
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Madonna’s firm sues Warner Music
Los Angeles, March 26 The suit filed yesterday asks a judge to terminate Madonna’s 12-year-old with Warner Music and allow her and business partner, Guy Oseary, to walk away from the deal taking along Maverick’s assets, including singer Alanis Morissette. The Los Angeles Superior Court suit is a response to a complaint Warner filed Wednesday in the eastern state of Delaware seeking to have Maverick’s claims that Warner violated the joint venture agreement declared baseless. Maverick alleges that Warner Music and former parent Time Warner “failed to abide by their contractual and fiduciary duty, engaging in acts of self-dealing and secret profit-taking.” — AFP |
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Exim Bank credit line for Angola
Mumbai, March 26 An official statement issued by the bank said an agreement to this effect had been signed by Mr R.M.V. Raman, the Executive Director of the bank and Mr Leonel Felisberta da Silva, the National Director for Treasury, Ministry of Finance, Angola. Exim Bank’s credit lines afford a risk-free, non-recourse export financing option to the Indian exporters. Under the credit line, the importers from Angola are required to make an advance payment of 10 per cent of contract value to the Indian exporters, upfront upon the shipment of goods. — UNI |
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