Showing posts with label Malaysia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malaysia. Show all posts

Monday, September 14, 2009

StanChart to open KPO in Bangalore; Hire 2,000 staff

Foreign lender Standard Chartered Bank plans to hire around 2,000 employees in India in the current financial year, a top official said.

The bank currently has around 8,000 employees in the country.

The banking major has also plans to open an office of its knowledge process outsourcing network -- Scope International-- in Bangalore by October, StanChart's Chief Operating Officer, India and South Asia Sreeram Iyer told reporters here.

At present, Scope International has offices in Malaysia, China and Chennai.

It employs over 7,000 employees in its Chennai unit.

Agencies

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Highest software budget for 2009-10 comes from APJ firms

Asia Pacific companies plan to increase their software budgets by 4.4 percent on average in 2010, while overall IT budgets was expected to decline by 3.1 percent on average, according to the latest survey by Gartner. More organizations in Asia Pacific (38 percent) expect to increase their software budgets in 2010 than their overall IT budget (31 percent).

"For most organizations, the budgeting process happens once a year, but adjusting the IT budget is a continuous exercise that is driven by economic conditions and changes in the business," said Gartner Research Director Yanna Dharmasthira. "In the midst of economic volatility, hardware budget allocation remains the top priority in most countries, but software budgets are a real bright spot and continue to demonstrate a positive outlook, although more cautious when compared with last year's survey."

The survey showed that the average expected increase in software budget of 4.4 percent in Asia Pacific is higher than all other regions surveyed including Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), North America and Latin America. India-based respondents are consistently the most optimistic, with the highest number of respondents intending to increase their IT budget in 2010 (42 percent), followed by China (32 percent). On the other hand, Malaysia-based respondents remain pessimistic, with the largest number of respondents intending to decrease their spending (52 percent), followed by Singapore (48 percent of respondents).

The respondents of this survey were asked whether they expected their 2010 IT budget to be below, the same or exceed their IT budget for 2009. Gartner surveyed 323 IT managers in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, China, India and Hong Kong, as part of a worldwide survey of 982 respondents, to help business and IT managers compare their enterprise IT spending with peer organizations.

Software is expected to represent the second-largest portion of the IT budget in most countries, with the exception of India (where software and hardware spend are roughly equal) and Australia (where spending is notably higher on IT staff). India is the most aggressive with the highest software budget allocation (26.9 percent), followed by Singapore (25.8 percent), Malaysia (24.1 percent) and China (23.1 percent).

India is also the most optimistic in software spending, with the average expected change in software budget of plus 10 percent. Dharmasthira said that vendors should revisit their potential customer list, as they may have shifted in terms of geography, as well as market segments. "Software vendors should not only focus sales efforts on traditional hot spots such as India and China, but look at opportunities in mature markets too. The intentions to increase software budget have become more varied among different countries and organizations, presenting good opportunities in a mix of developed and emerging countries," said Dharmasthira.

Agencies

Sunday, March 29, 2009

About 26,000 jobs lost in Malaysia due to global crisis

More than 26,000 people have lost their jobs in Malaysia so far this year as the economic slowdown forced employers to cut back, state news agency Bernama reported Sunday.

Malaysian Employers Federation executive director Shamsuddin Bardan told Bernama he expected further job losses in the coming weeks.

He said a 16.2 billion dollar stimulus package unveiled earlier this month had not provided immediate incentive for companies to retain their workers.

The government has slashed its work permit approvals for foreign workers by almost 70 percent so far this year and cancelled work visas for 55,000 Bangladeshi workers after unions said the situation for Malaysians was bleak enough.

In January, the government also banned the hiring of new foreigners in the manufacturing and services sectors after a report forecast 45,000 Malaysians would lose their jobs in the next few months.

Malaysia is one of Asia's largest importers of labour and has an estimated 2.2 million foreign workers, who are the mainstay of the plantation and manufacturing sectors.

However, the government has become concerned about the ramifications of having such a large migrant workforce and periodically tries to reduce it.

Agencies

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Do Indians lag behind in online social networking?

Internet users in the country may be growing substantially, but when it comes to networking online, India has been placed among the nations with least exposure to social networking sites in the Asia-Pacific region.

The US-based internet marketing research firm comScore in a report has said that only 60.3 per cent of internet users in India are used to social networking sites, making it one of the Asia-Pacific countries with least exposure to the activity.

In terms of the penetration of social networking sites, India is ahead of Japan (50.9 per cent), China (45.6 per cent) and Taiwan (42.4 per cent).

According to the report, Singapore has the highest number of social networking site users at 74.3 per cent in the region, followed by Australia (68.3 per cent), South Korea (68 per cent) and Malaysia (66.6 per cent).

Hong Kong and New Zealand have the same per centage of such users at 62.8 per cent, the report noted.

However, comScore said that the number of visitors to social networking sites has increased by 51 per cent in India.

In India, the number of internet users visiting such sites rose by 51 per cent to 19.37 million in December 2008, the report said. The number of visitors stood at just 12.8 million in December 2007.

Agencies

Monday, February 9, 2009

Will Intel shift out 2,000 jobs out of Shanghai?

Intel Corp announced on Thursday a reorganization of its China operations that would close a Shanghai plant and eliminate 2,000 jobs, while affected workers would be offered positions in other parts of the country.

The news comes just days after the world's largest chipmaker said it would close plants in Malaysia, the Philippines and the U.S., cutting as many as 6,000 jobs as quarterly profit tumbled 90 percent.

"In order to optimize its manufacturing resources in China, Intel plans to consolidate Assembly and Test operations (ATM) from Pudong to Chengdu over the next 12 months," the company said in a statement.

Intel said it would provide the affected employees an option to work at the Chengdu facility in the west, or Dalian in the north, both more than 1,000 kilometres from Shanghai.

"The decision to relocate is up to the employees," said Nancy Zhang, an Intel spokesperson in Beijing. Zhang said she was not aware of any subsidies or other incentives that employees who choose to relocate would receive.

An Intel employee who attended the meeting in Shanghai where Brain Krzanich, president of Intel's Manufacturing and Supply Chain group, announced the job losses said workers were upset about the need to move to keep their jobs.

Intel said it was committed to China, nevertheless, and would increase its registered capital in Intel China Ltd., the company's investment holding company based in Shanghai, by $110 million.

Intel said the moves were necessary "as a result of the current economic conditions" and that its investment in the new $2.5 billion Dalian factory would be increased in order to insure that it has the latest advanced chip technology.

After Intel's assembly and test facility is closed in Shanghai, the eastern port city will still be home to an Intel research and development center and the firm's China headquarters.

Agencies

Friday, January 23, 2009

Intel to shut sites in Malaysia, Philippines; To layoff 6,000 jobs

Intel Corp said on Wednesday it would close manufacturing plants in Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as its only remaining factory in Silicon Valley, cutting as many as 6,000 jobs.

The announcement comes a day after the world's largest maker of microprocessors used in personal computers slashed prices on a number of its chips and a week after it reported a decline in fourth-quarter revenue.

Intel said it would close two assembly test facilities in Penang, Malaysia, and one in Cavite, Philippines.

It will also halt production at a wafer fabrication facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, as well as its Santa Clara, California plant -- a factory connected to its headquarters and the only one left in Silicon Valley.

The actions will result in a reduction of 5,000 to 6,000 jobs, Intel said. It ended 2008 with around 84,000 employees.

Not all cuts at the affected plants will lead to job losses and some workers will be offered positions at other facilities, it said, adding that the restructuring will take place between now and the end of 2009.

"It's not a surprise given that their first quarter is probably going to be challenging, and they're trying to do what they can to cut costs in places that make sense," said Taunya Sell, an analyst at Ragen Mackenzie, a division of Wells Fargo.

Intel said it was not halting production at any of its more advanced factories.

Intel shares rose about 1 percent to $13.40 in after-hours trading, after rising 3.11 percent to close at $13.26 on the Nasdaq stock market.

Last week, Intel said its fourth-quarter revenue fell 23 percent from the year-ago period and profit tumbled 90 percent. It also held back on giving detailed quarterly forecasts, citing economic uncertainty.

Analysts have been wary about Intel's outlook for the year as chip sales slide. PC makers and other technology companies have been trimming inventory and cutting back on purchases.

Intel also faces competition from new, cheaper chips made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N).

On Tuesday, Intel said it was lowering prices on some of its processors, including price cuts of up to 40 percent on some of its higher-powered, faster quad-core chips.

AMD said earlier this month that it expected to post additional restructuring charges for fiscal 2008 and 2009.

Agencies

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