GIIS Campuses Win Multiple Awards at MQH Best Practices Competition in India

Global Indian International School, a chain of international schools headquartered in Singapore, won a number of awards recently at the MQH Best Practices Competition organised by IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award (RBNQA) Trust, taking the total tally of awards won by the school to 154.

GIIS, which has 21 campuses across 7 countries - India, Japan, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, is acclaimed for its award-winning educational pedagogy and best practices in education that fosters holistic development among students. The institution has received 154 awards till date and has been recognised by coveted national and international organisations including Asia Pacific Quality Organisation, Institute of Directors, Enterprise Singapore, and Indian Merchants Chamber among many others.

The school has a dedicated Global Centre for Excellence in Education (GCEE) team that is committed to establish the highest standards in education excellence and carve the path to achieve awards and recognition for GIIS across countries.

In the recently held MQH Best Practices Competition organised by IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award (RBNQA) Trust, eight GIIS campuses won awards. The competition was held virtually from 23rd to 26th June during which students and faculty from various campuses presented on different topics and won accolades for their ideas and presentation skills.

The participating GIIS teams were from - Kuala Lumpur, Bangalore (Whitefield), Abu Dhabi, Singapore (Punggol SMART Campus), Singapore (East Coast), Ahmedabad, Tokyo, Pune (Balewadi).

GIIS Abu Dhabi swept the Winner Trophy for their presentation on Heartfulness Intervention. GIIS SMART Campus was the First Runner Up for presenting on #SMART-TECH-ULARS, followed by GIIS Tokyo and GIIS Ahmedabad as the Second Runner-up. GIIS Ahmedabad’s topic was Building Responsible Green Citizens while GIIS Tokyo on The Unival Tree.

Students spoke confidently on their topics and presented information with the help of statistics and data to explain their point of view. Post every presentation, the panel of judges, comprising eminent personalities from various fields, asked questions from the students and the rating was done on were shared during the sessions and along with that are of relevance in today’s times and also of possible solutions to control the situation.

The competition was participated by over 40 organisations from various categories like Service, Health, Education and Manufacturing.

Apart from the above-mentioned eight GIIS campuses, Mahatma Gandhi Global Indian Eklavya School (MGGIES) Tilakwada which is run by GSF participated in NGO category also participated in the competition and won first runner-up for their presentation on Amrut Sandesh.

About Global Indian International School

Winner of 150 international awards, Global Indian International School (GIIS) is a global network of premier international schools with more than 15,000 students across 21 campuses in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, UAE, Vietnam and India. Founded in 2002, GIIS offers a range of International and Indian curricula for Kindergarten to Grade 12 students. These include the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP), Cambridge IGCSE, IB Primary Years Programme, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Global Montessori Plus programme. 

GIIS’ mission is to nurture young minds into global leaders and innovators of tomorrow through skills-based approach to education which believes in academic and extracurricular excellence. This approach, called the Nine GEMS methodology, balances excellence in academics with sports, performing arts, entrepreneurship and character development. GIIS is a member of the Global Schools Foundation (GSF) which has been recognised worldwide for high standards of governance and established academic criteria. 

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

Can Mumbai, Bangalore emerge as the global capitals?

The Russian capital as well as Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad have every chance of becoming global capitals on par with cities such as New York, London and Tokyo, according to the latest issue of Forbes magazine.

The influential publication assessed the rapidly changing forces driving the global economy, such as the inflow of capital and labour resources, and the pace of infrastructure development, and looked into the future, ranking the Russian capital alongside Shanghai, Beijing, Sao Paolo, Dubai and the Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

"Fifteen years ago, Moscow was in the midst of a particularly grungy interlude, filled with stolid people waiting in lines for shoddy consumer goods. Today, its hotel accommodations - cheap if dinghy a quarter century ago - are among the world's most expensive.

Russia's huge energy industry, which dominates all of Europe, is the key factor driving the transformation," Forbes wrote.

The article, published Wednesday, notes that Moscow has had a radical makeover since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The city, where Moscow State University was the tallest building at 240 meters (787 feet), now has a host of skyscrapers including the three tallest buildings in Europe, the highest of which is still under construction.

"With a population of 10 million, Moscow is already Europe's most populous city and could get bigger yet, particularly if energy prices rise," the magazine said.

Although Forbes expects most global capitals of the future to be outside the Western Hemisphere, it includes Calgary in Canada, Perth in Western Australia and the Texan pair of Houston and Dallas in its list.

But the article does recognise that the current centers of financial and political influence - such as Tokyo, New York, London, Paris, Seoul, Singapore and Hong Kong - will not fade into the background for some time to come.

Agencies

Will Creative Technology layoff 300 jobs?

Struggling Singaporean digital entertainment products maker Creative Technology is to cut 300 jobs globally, mostly in Europe and the United States, the company said.

It said in a statement the company said that there would be a restructuring charge of 10 million dollars for severance payments and headcount cost reductions in the current third quarter ending March.

The Singapore-listed firm has struggled to make inroads against Apple's iconic iPod in the MP3 or digital music player market despite pumping in massive investments.

In the second quarter ended December 2008, Creative Technology racked up a net loss of 32.4 million dollars compared with a profit of 7.6 million dollars for the same period in the previous financial year.

Agencies

Is it business as usual at Satyam?

In his first overseas trip to reinforce Satyam's commitment, Satyam Computer Services' newly appointed Chief Executive Officer A.S. Murty today assured Singapore that "It's business as usual at Satyam".

Murty's trip underscored the company's ongoing commitment to Singapore, headquarters for its "Rest of the World" (RoW) operations, which include Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, India and Africa. The visit was also aimed at restoring stakeholders' confidence and ensuring business continuity in the republic where its business remains strong.

Murty also used his two-day visit to address key considerations about Satyam's operational and financial aspects. Since 2000, Singapore has been an integral part of the leading global consulting and information technology services provider's global growth strategy.

"Satyam's foundation in Singapore and the RoW region is still quite strong," Murty said. "Our customer base remains intact and all of our clients have chosen to stand by us during these challenging times. And, since the beginning of 2009, we have seen a record level of new contracts in the region, which shows the confidence our customers and the industry continue to have in us."

Assuring that Satyam has a promising future, Murty said the new Board represents some of the best management talent available and employee morale continues to be high.

"My immediate priority as CEO is to initiate and cultivate additional measures that will continue to stabilize Satyam and benefit all its stakeholders," Murty said. "Singapore plays a key role in those stabilization efforts, because it is the nerve centre of our efforts to grow our business in this critical region."

CXOtoday

Oil near $35 amid grim US economic news

Oil prices rose slightly to above $35 a barrel on Thursday in Asia despite grim U.S. economic news that pointed to a deep recession and weaker crude demand.

Light, sweet crude for March delivery rose 54 cents to $35.18 a barrel by late afternoon in Singapore on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract on Wednesday fell 31 cents to settle at $34.62.

The March contract expires on Friday, and traders switched their focus to the April contract, which rose 62 cents to $38.03.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday confirmed what many investors already suspected _ that the US economy has significantly deteriorated in the last few months.

The Fed said it expects the economy will contract between 0.5 and 1.3 per cent this year. Its previous forecast from November had a 0.2 per cent contraction as the worst case scenario.

The Fed also said the unemployment rate will likely rise to between 8.5 and 8.8 per cent this year, higher than its previous forecast of between 7.1 and 7.6 per cent.

The current global economic slump began in 2007 with a crisis in the US sub-prime mortgage sector, and the housing market continues to buckle under the weight of surging foreclosures.

A report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday said construction of new homes and apartments plunged 16.8 per cent in January from the previous month, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 466,000 units, a record low.

``The housing data suggests the recession is even worse than we thought,'' said Christoffer Moltke-Leth, head of sales trading for Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore. ``We need to see the housing market stabilize because consumer sentiment is very much correlated to it.''

Investors are skeptical that a $787 billion stimulus bill signed this week by President Barack Obama will spark a quick recovery. The White House on Wednesday said the government will spend $75 billion to help prevent millions of Americans from losing their homes.

Crude investors are also concerned a jump in oil inventories is reflecting a steep drop-off in demand.

Analysts expect crude stocks will grow by 3.5 million barrels when the Energy Department releases inventory data for the week ended Feb. 13, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. Inventories have risen more than 30 million barrels in the last six weeks.

``Inventories are the focus now,'' said Moltke-Leth. ``If they rise again, it will put more downward pressure on crude.''

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has struggled to bolster prices as output cuts fail to keep up with falling demand.

Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said Wednesday the group may cut production again at a meeting on March 15, on top of the reduction of 4.2 million barrels a day announced since September. Ramirez said the 13-member cartel would like prices to rise to $70 a barrel.

``OPEC is looking very weak right now,'' said Moltke-Leth said. ``There's a lot of chatter from them, but the market isn't really listening.''

Moltke-Leth said prices will likely fall to about $32 a barrel, which would test the 10-year average price.

``$32 and a half is a significant line in the sand,'' he said. ``It's a key support level, and I expect the market to test how strong it is.''

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures rose 0.83 cent to $1.07 a gallon. Heating oil gained 1.71 cents to $1.16 a gallon, while natural gas for March delivery jumped 3.0 cents to $4.24 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, the March Brent contract rose 98 cents to $40.54 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Agencies

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

IT spending to be on a slowdown across Asia

IT spending in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) will drop to a growth rate of 7.1% in 2009, a decrease from 10.2% in 2008, said Singapore-based research group Springboard Research.

According to Springboard's executive brief Asia Pacific IT Market Predictions 2009 released today, all countries in the region will be affected, but the degree of fallout from the economic crisis will differ by country.

Countries at highest risk of a slowdown include the most developed economies of the region, such as Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand. Less developed, emerging and boom Asian economies, such as Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam run a lower risk of a spending slowdown.


Like other regions of the world, Asia will experience an IT spending slowdown during 2009 as all organizations re-look at spending in the wake of the global economic crisis, said Dane Anderson, CEO and EVP of Research at Springboard Research.

However, even with slower growth Asia will continue to emerge as a critical region for IT vendors and we will continue to see a substantial shift in investment moving to Asia and other global emerging markets. While the crisis will affect Asia in 2009, it will also further cement the region as crucial to any global company s growth strategy moving forward, Anderson added.

According to the study, countries in the High Risk Index are Australia, Hong Kong, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand. However there is some good news for India as it has been placed in the 'lower risk' segment.

"As illustrated in our predictions, we expect that most organizations in the region will be modifying their IT strategy from a focus on supporting revenue generation to an approach aimed at improving efficiencies," said Ravi Shekhar Pandey, manager - Syndicated Research at Springboard Research. There will be a continued focus on reducing operational expenditure, both from business and IT perspectives. On the positive side, while technology spending will definitely be affected by this crisis, it will be more resilient than other areas that are often easier and quicker to cut.

Technology will be more resilient than other areas of spending among enterprises and will be difficult to cut, according to Springboard.

As crisis drags on; layoffs mount globally

Credit Suisse and Nomura Holdings announced big job cuts on Thursday, further evidence the global financial crisis is unrelenting for an industry battered by heavy losses and weak markets.

The 5,300 layoffs by the Swiss bank and a further 1,000 in London by Japan’s biggest broker are the latest in the global financial sector which has now seen over 150,000 jobs culled since September when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.

Of these, more than 50,000 were at Citigroup, which has made more writedowns than any other bank in the world during the crisis.

While the axe had been falling for months in the industry, Lehman’s fall sparked carnage in financial markets and reshaped the industry landscape, resulting in job losses from New York to Singapore to Mumbai. “I don’t think people really know what’s next. It depends on sentiment, which will in turn drive credit markets, which in turn will weigh on banks or not,” said a London-based equities trader.

From the United States to Asian export giant Japan to European powerhouse Germany, the world’s top economies are now in recession as the global crisis deepens.

They are not the only ones with Singapore, New Zealand and Hong Kong also joining in. The losses at banks are increasing. Credit Suisse said on Thursday it made a net loss of about 3 billion Swiss francs ($2.5 billion) in October and November.

It has already cut 1,800 jobs this year and said this week it would cut 650 investment banking jobs in Britain. “Investment banking had a significant pretax loss, reflecting the challenging conditions in the financial markets in the quarter and the costs associated with risk reduction,” the bank said.

Credit Suisse’s shares jumped 8% in European trade in a broader market up 1.6%.
In Asia, Nomura, Japan’s biggest brokerage, said the decision to cut as much as 22% of its London staff followed an internal review after the purchase of the Asian, European and Middle Eastern assets of Lehman Brothers.

Nomura had said the purchase of parts of Lehman Brothers would help the Japanese brokerage achieve its profit target despite poor financial market conditions. “This is a natural move,” said Azuma Ohno, a brokerage analyst at Credit Suisse Securities in Japan.

“Once Nomura bought Lehman, it cannot continue Japanese-style life-time employment. It needs to be flexible in costs to be profitable.”Australia’s top investment bank, Macquarie Group, is cutting 10 to 15% of its jobs in Asia, two sources said last week.

Banks are axing jobs across Asia and even in countries such as India, where investment bankers were snapped up feverishly in the last few years in anticipation of strong initial public offerings and M&A markets. “The layoffs will come in phases and will stretch into 2009,” said Singapore-based Will Tan of Webbe International, an executive search firm specializing in the financial sector.

The job cuts from Nomura and Credit Suisse came a few hours after a report of layoffs at Bank of America. Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis said the bank is in the “final stage of our analysis” for planned job cuts following its purchase of Merrill Lynch, the Charlotte observer said on its website on Wednesday. Layoffs have also gathered pace at fund management firms.

State Street, one of the world’s biggest institutional money managers, said on Wednesday it plans to lay off as many as 1,800 people, or 6% of its staff, in the first three months of 2009. Private equity firm Carlyle Group is cutting about 100 jobs — around 10% of its staff — a source familiar with the situation said. The reductions are the first major cuts made by a large US private equity firm since the global economic crisis hit.

Middle market investment bank Jefferies Group will slash nearly 15% of its employees worldwide and close offices in Dubai, Singapore and Tokyo as it contends with heavy losses for 2008.

Source: Reuters

AIG to sell its Swiss unit

Troubled insurance giant American International Group will be selling its Swiss arm AIG Private Bank to an Abu Dhabi-based global investment firm.

In this regard, AIG has entered into an agreement with Aabar Investments PJSC (Aabar) to sell its subsidiary, the insurance firm said in a statement.

According to UK daily ‘The Telegraph’, the Swiss subsidiary would be sold for about $254 million.

The move is one of the major sale of asset by the battered AIG, after receiving a lifeline worth $153 billion from the Federal government.

The statement noted that under the new ownership, AIG Private Bank would become an independent financial institution, headquartered in Switzerland along with branches and representative offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Dubai.

Source: Agencies

AT&T launches first super Internet Data Centre in Singapore

AT&T Inc. announced the launch of the first super Internet Data Centre (IDC) in Asia, located in Singapore.

The super IDC, an expansion of AT&T's existing facilities, would act as a regional gateway to the Internet and the AT&T network to deliver AT&T Synaptic HostingSM, its next-generation utility computing services.

This launch is part of AT&T's $1 billion planned global network investment in 2008 to increase global data centre hosting capacity throughout the 38 data centres in AT&T's global Internet protocol (IP) network.

Other super IDCs are located in Piscataway, New Jersey; San Diego, California; Annapolis, Maryland and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which will form the regional hubs in the US and Europe.

Bernard Yee, vice president, AT&T Asia Pacific, said: "AT&T continues to invest in growing its business to support customers and to meet the demands of multinational corporations for next-generation services and solutions. To help customers in this challenging economic environment, the first super IDC in Asia, combined with our Synaptic Hosting platform, will offer them much greater flexibility to scale their information technology resources up or down to meet their business requirements."

"The super IDC will enable us to offer information technology and infrastructure service as turn-key managed infrastructure solutions on demand," Yee added.

"In addition, AT&T is going to offer managed application services within the sectors of enterprise resource planning software, eCommerce, web services, messaging and unified communications services to enhance our value proposition and managed services proposition for our customers in Asia and globally."

"Our goal is to allow them to focus on running their businesses while achieving greater flexibility, improved performance and further cost-savings," Yee said.

The AT&T IDCs allow AT&T to deliver consistent, highly scalable, enterprise-class information technology (IT) services around the globe. In addition to the hosting services available in all other centres, the super IDC supports large-scale computing and application infrastructure on demand that can be combined with other AT&T hosting services, such as managed networking, virtualised security, application acceleration and storage.

Companies can deliver end-user applications infrastructure whenever and wherever they are needed on a pay-for-use model. The new services can be accessed from anywhere in the world and combines technology acquired by AT&T from application service provider US inter-networking.