HCL Tech Completes Rs 895 Cr Deal with Volvo for Infrastructure and Application Operations

HCL Technologies has completed the outsourcing deal with Swedish auto major -- Volvo Group for infrastructure and application operations, making Volvo ready for the rapid advancements in business enabling technology such as cloud, automation, business intelligence and big data.

HCL also acquired Volvo’s external IT business, adding 40 new customers from Nordics and France to its portfolio, further enhancing its position in these regions, the company said.

The deal follows a Letter of Intent that was announced by Volvo Group in October that HCL will use its 21st Century Enterprise Framework to deliver on a technology transformation roadmap for optimising Volvo Group’s infrastructure and application operations.

Around 2,500 people working for the Volvo Group will transfer to HCL across 11 countries, it said.

According to sources, the deal is pegged around $138 million (around ₹895 crore).

The company said Volvo IT customers would now have the advantage of access to a broad range of differentiated global capabilities, tools and processes that integrate with technology environments at a global level.

It would also create an automotive centre of excellence in Gothenburg based on the domain expertise of the Volvo team, to serve HCL’s global automotive and manufacturing customers.

“We welcome over 40 new Volvo IT customers to the HCL client base. This addition enables HCL to achieve an even stronger presence in the Nordics and the wider European region, and accelerates our journey in these markets,” said Anant Gupta, President and Chief Executive Officer, HCL Technologies.

“Combining the strengths of HCL with those of the transferred parts of Volvo IT will result in an organisation with formidable capabilities and an intimate understanding of Volvo Group needs and opportunities,” said Olle Högblom, CIO of the Volvo Group and President of Volvo IT.

Huge FDI Inflow in Non IT & ITeS Sectors; But FII’s on Decline, Says Nirmala Sitharaman

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addressing students at IIMB on FDI/FII and WTO said FDI inflows in the country are improving day by day, and more and more investments are coming from sectors other than IT and ITeS. However, FII have been on the decline.

Highest investments are coming from services other than IT and IT-enabled services which may include a lot of things - it could be courier services; it could be getting into services that are partly related to logistics and retailing and so on," she said in her address at the IIM Bangalore. 

Construction and infrastructure is the second highest sector which are receiving FDIs, the Minister said. 

"We also have retailing, IT and IT-enabled services. Chemical industry also is receiving - other than fertilisers, they are also receiving a lot," she said. 

Sitharaman said that India received FDI worth nearly $29.6 billion, the highest amount received by any country in last fiscal. 

"Among the countries, which do monitoring on FDIs flowing into theirs, we seem to have received the highest amount in the last fiscal," she added. 

"Something in the range of $29.6 billion (India has received FDIs) in the last fiscal. In terms of percentage, it is 38 per cent rise in inflows compared to 16 per cent dip all over the world," Sitharaman added. 

The Minister said India has received the highest FDIs compared to other countries only showed that the Indian economy is instilling confidence in the minds of investors. 

"It is only improving day by day. Largely individual, trust and other corporate entities are coming in," she said. 

The US business houses in next five years will be investing anywhere between $40 to 45 billion in India in various sectors of activity. 

"The US-India Business Council has assessed that in the next five years US Business Houses will be interested in investing anywhere between US $40 to 45 billion in India in various sectors of activity," she said. 

However, Foreign Institutional Investments (FIIs) are progressively coming down, Sitharaman remarks. 

"FIIs are dropping. There is no increase in FIIs. They actually are progressively coming down," she adds. 

Tata Consultancy Services Emerges as UK’s Top Employer

India's Tata Consultancy Services, a leading global IT, consulting and business solutions firm, today said it has been recognised as the UK's top employer by a certification body for the second time in a row.

TCS is one of just 70 employers to receive a Top Employers accreditation by the Top Employers Institute based on in-depth research into nine core HR criteria: talent strategy, workforce planning, on-boarding, learning and development, performance management, leadership development, career and succession management, compensation and benefits and company culture, it said in a release here.

Established in 1991, the 'Top Employers' certification is designed to identify and recognise the world's leading organisations in the field of HR management and employee conditions.

The award of the certification is based on an industry- leading research methodology, conducted by the Top Employers Institute and audited by Grant Thornton.

Nupur Singh Mallick, HR Director, Tata Consultancy Services UK and Ireland, said: "We are delighted to have been awarded the UK's number one Top Employer for the second year running and are looking forward to building on this progress as we continue to invest in training and development for our staff.

"As one of the UK's biggest IT and digital employers, TCS' priority has always been to create a positive, inspiring environment for its employees, giving them a platform to help them realise their potential and our clients access to a world-class talent pool.

Eleanor Nickerson, Director of UK Operations for the Top Employers Institute, said: "Our in-depth examination concluded that Tata Consultancy Services provides an outstanding employee experience, with high quality initiatives that engage, reward and motivate employees, ensuring that people can develop themselves personally and professionally, and build a rewarding career."

TCS has a UK workforce of over 11,000 employees based across 30 locations, including London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds, Ipswich, Norwich, Peterborough and Liverpool. The company delivers digital projects in the UK for more than 150 customers, including Boots, BT, Diageo, National Grid, Nationwide, NEST, Marks & Spencer, Thames Water and Virgin Atlantic.

This is sixth consecutive year that TCS has been certified as one of the UK's top employers, and builds on a number of recent awards in recognition of the company's employee engagement and development activities, the release said.

Agencies

Twenty Five Percent of India’s GDP to Come From Manufacturing Sector: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asserted that his government is working towards scaling up the share of the manufacturing sector to 25 per cent of the GDP. 

“We are working aggressively towards making India a global manufacturing hub. We want the share of manufacturing in our GDP to go up to 25 per cent in the near future,” Modi said, inaugurating the Make in India Week in Mumbai. 

Towards achieving this goal, the prime minister said that he was particularly keen on scaling up investments in the next generation infrastructure.  "This includes roads, ports, railways, airports, telecom, digital networks and clean energy,” he said at the National Sports Complex of India at Worli here, after visiting the Make in India Centre at the Bandra-Kurla Complex, where he formally inaugurated the mega event, dubbed as Asia’s biggest multi-sectoral exhibition.

"In a year’s time, Make in India has become  the biggest brand that India has ever created. Both within and outside the country, it has captured the imagination of people, institutions, industries, media and the political leadership,” Modi told a gathering of corporate leaders who had converged in Mumbai from across the globe.  

Key projects

During the course of his address, the prime minister referred to his key projects like Digital India, Skill India and Start-up India.

“India offers you a solid platform to test and launch your making and designing capabilities. In addition, our maritime location makes it easy to market products in several other continents. We are trying to further enable and harness this vast potential with path-breaking initiatives. Campaigns like Digital India and Skill India have been designed to prepare people to take part in this process,” he said. 

“From space shuttles to pollution control; from health to education; from agriculture to services; our young entrepreneurs and startups are showing us newer and faster ways for enterprise and delivery. My government is committed to support them and tap their energy fully. We want our youth to become job creators rather than job seekers.”

Europe keen on India 

European countries Poland, Sweden and Finland have shown interest in India, assuring to invest in the country, even as half-a-dozen mega deals were signed on the inaugural day of one of the biggest mega events and multi-sectoral exhibitions of Asia. 

“Poland is a strong economy in the European Union and it is getting stronger with every passing year. Polish business leaders are looking for partners in India, which holds the future of global economy. There is huge scope for collaboration between both the countries in the areas of mining, food processing, steel, shipbuilding, information technology (IT) and ITeS,” Polish Investment Agency President Stawomir Majman said.

Indian investment in Poland rose seven times in the last five years. However, there is plenty of opportunities for Indian companies to explore in the Polish economy, Majman added.

Modi recalled long association of his home state Gujarat with Poland through Jamnagar during his bilateral talks with the Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Glinski. They discussed areas of cooperation in food processing, clean energy and transportation sectors.

Sweden, another partner coutry for the MIIW, also said that the country is keen to hike their investments in India. 

In his talks with his Swedish counterpart Stefan Löfven, Modi lauded Sweden as significant participant under the Make In India initiative. 

There are around 160 Swedish companies in India that generate 160,000 jobs in the country directly, and 1.1 million, indirectly. 

During his interaction with the Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, Modi invited Finland’s active participation in engineering, power plants, biotech and innovation. The two prime ministers also tele-inaugurated a new manufacturing unit of Trivitron Healthcare in Chennai.

Three mega MoUs signed 

Three key MoUs entailing an investment of nearly Rs 21,000 crore were signed between corporate giants and the Maharashtra Government in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

An  MoU between Sterlite Group company TwinStar Display Technologies and MIDC to set up LCD manufacturing unit known as Panel FAB, with technical collaboration with Autron of Taiwan. The project entails investment of Rs 20,000 crore. 

Another MoU between Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages, Jain Irrigation and Department of Agriculture and Marketing to set up a juice manufacturing facility to support farmers growing oranges in Vidarbha. Besides, an MoU between Raymond Industries and MIDC was signed — as part of a ‘Farm-to-Fabric’ initiative — wherein Raymond intends to invest Rs 1,400 crore to manufacture linen yarn, fabric and garmenting, in the Nandgaon Textile Park at Amravati District.

Agencies

MoU Signed for Indigenous Mission Computer with CSIR-NAL & Tata Advanced Systems for ‘Make in India’

The Integrated Global bus Avionics Processing System (IGAPS) popularly called Mission Computer is a Core Aircraft Computing Platform with features like ARINC 664 global bus, ARINC 818 fibre channel video bus and ARINC 653 compliance. This sophisticated state of the art onboard computing system has been successfully designed, developed and integrated for the first time in India by CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR-NAL), Bengaluru for Civil Avionics requirements in line with “Make in India” initiative.

To take this development further to the Indian and worldwide market in corporating application specific upgrades and Airworthiness approvals resulting into a certified product, CSIR-NAL and Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to undertake this as a collaborative effort between the two organizations towards furthering the "Make in India" National Mission of the Government of India.  

The Mission Computer, a key electronic system on Air and Defence platforms for subsystem integration and control, and its variants will be manufactured in India and cater to the Indian and Global markets. Further, the Mission Computer will be used for wide ranging applications acrossvarious Aerospace and Defence platforms.The collaborative partnership with CSIR-NAL reinforces TASL’s continued efforts to develop, integrate and maintain critical pieces of technology for large Aerospace and Defence systems within India as part of the “Make-in-India” initiative, and strive to become a preferred partner to the Indian and Global Aerospace & Defence industry.

For CSIR-NAL, this MoUis a land mark achievement in realising commercialisation of developed technologies enabling Indian industries to compete globally and achieve self reliance in a high technology strategic area. “This is one of the best example of public private collaboration effort towards Make in India” said Mr. Shyam Chetty, Director, CSIR- NAL.  

“This collaboration with CSIR-NAL reinforces TASL’s continued commitment towards indigenous design, development and manufacturing of key systems and sub-systems for Aerospace and Defence applications, leveraging the technology developed by major Aerospace and Defence Labs in India.’’ said Mr. S. Ramadorai, Chairman, Tata Advanced Systems.

The IGAPS is one of the most technologically challenging aircraft core computing platform to be ever designed within the country for civil avionics requirements. This development is part of CSIR-NAL’s vision of achieving self reliance in indigenous design and development of complex airborne systems for national aircraft programme needs. The avionics architecture whose life-cycle costs are currently estimated to be approximately in millions of dollars is an architectural change which will enable it to keep up with the growing demand of low operating cost and high performance requirements demanded by industry today.

As a leader in the Aerospace industry in India, TASL with its global transition programmes with marque names in the aerospace industry like Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, has successfully demonstrated its ability to take complex aerospace programs and has recently announced partnership with Boeing Defence. TASL has also entered into the domain of precision manufacturing of aero-engines for Rolls Royce.

Swedish Companies Set to Drive Modi's Make In India Initiative

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Swedish counterpart Stefan Lofven jointly inaugurated the Sweden Country Pavilion at the Make in India Week today and Stockholm said its companies are looking to increase their investments in Asia's third-largest economy.

Mr Lofven is accompanied by a high-level delegation consisting of government officials, heads of agencies and industry leaders to participate in the 'Make in India' Week.

The Scandinavian nation has one of the largest delegations at the jamboree. "Swedish industry has always believed in India as a perfect trading partner-right from the time Ericsson laid the first cables in 1903 to the current times when our companies are looking to raise their investments and their manufacturing units here," said Harald Sandberg, Swedish Ambassador to India.

Retail-Tech Startup SnapBizz Gets Ratan Tata’s Investments

Bangalore based retail-tech startup SnapBizz has announced that it has raised funding from Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons. In January 2016, SnapBizz had announced a Series A funding of $7.2 million led by Jungle Ventures, Taurus Value creation, Konly Venture and Blume Ventures.

With the mission of transforming the unorganized fragmented retail sector in the country, SnapBizz currently works with over a thousand kirana stores across Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore and aims to expand its footprint across other tier 1 and 2 cities.

“We are privileged to have Ratan Tata as an investor at SnapBizz. As one of the most respected names in corporate India, Mr. Tata brings a rich legacy of doing business with a human touch. This reflects in his investment in SnapBizz as we have begun a humble journey of reverse marginalisation of SMB’s and driving digital inclusion in the large consumer goods industry. A visionary of Mr. Tata’s stature showing confidence in SnapBizz is certainly a big boost for our business idea and will continue to accelerate the digital revolution in India’s kirana stores. Brands are also seeing this an opportunity to partner with us in order to be a well wisher of the retailers ‎and get the share of mind of the retailer to appropriate the positioning as the company that cares for the retailers“, said Prem Kumar, CEO and founder, SnapBizz. 

Snapbizz is on a mission to transform the face of small-scale retail sector in the country and empower kirana stores not only to be competition ready but to have a competitive edge by making them “Virtual Super Markets”.

Snapbizz solutions are designed and developed with an in-depth understanding of business process of the kirana store that is reflected in its simplicity and ease of use. Its unique ability to create virtual shelf space attracts additional income to retailers from companies that want to merchandize and contextually engage customers’ in-store and out of store.It also enables smart store management and a digital connection to consumers, FMCG companies and distributors.

In a diverse market like India, where the traditional kirana stores make 98% of store universe and 85% of retail business, the Snapbizz solution is revolutionizing kirana stores across the country by connecting all the dots of the fragmented FMCG ecosystem (brands, retailers, consumers, wholesalers and distributors) and addresses pain points of all stakeholders.