6 Indian firms storm BW's Infotech 100 list
By agencies   |   Monday, 13 June 2005, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Indian IT firms Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Cognizant and Satyam and telecom services company Bharti Tele-Ventures have stormed into the Infotech 100 list of BusinessWeek magazine. Infosys, which has been ranked number 10 among the global infotech giants, won praises from the magazine for keeping its clients and investors happy. Tata Consultancy Services is ranked number 12, followed by Bharti Tele-Ventures at No. 19, Wipro at No. 23, Cognizant Technology Solutions at No. 32 and Satyam at No. 85," BusinessWeek said in its Infotech 100 list. TCS was ranked among the 10 most profitable companies, seeing profits of over $500 million. Cognizant was ranked among the 10 best companies in shareholder return. Interestingly, top global firms Accenture and IBM are ranked at No. 31 and No. 44, respectively. Commenting on Infosys, the magazine said 'thrilled investors' in India value Infosys, which was well on its way to cross $2 billion in revenue during this year, more than its rival TCS, which was two-fifths bigger in revenues. "Infosys' customers are happy too: 19 out of 20 customers come back to this Bangalore-based firm with repeat orders. Now the company is eyeing China. Of the 12,600 people it will hire this year, about 1,000 will be at its Shanghai offices," the magazine said. On TCS, BusinessWeek said that the company took a big step in 2004, referring to the company going public and raising $1.17 billion, which was India's largest initial public offering. However, a one-time $23.5 million charge on employee incentives kept profit growth of the company to 27.5 percent, behind its peers in a fast growing industry and leaving investors momentarily disappointed. It also said TCS, the market leader, was looking for forward growth in high value businesses such as technology consulting, software embedded in electronic chips and Radio Frequency Identification (RIFD). "Excited about combining India's software skills and China's electronic hardware prowess, TCS' CEO S Ramadorai is expanding rapidly in Hangzhou," it said. On Cognizant, the magazine said: "As more companies farm out their business tasks to India, Cognizant keeps riding the outsourcing wave." But it said Cognizant gave a twist to the formula which in turn gave it an edge in the increasingly crowded field. "Rather than setting up shop solely in India, Cognizant was one of the outsourcers to focus on building a U.S. based management team to develop closer relationship with customers. And about 87 percent of its sales come from customers in North America, most of which are large corporations that want to cut their technology costs like J P Morgan Chase and United Healthcare," it said. "Now Cognizant is seeing growth from testing software code and moving upstream into consulting," it added. BusinessWeek said Bharti, in which New York buyout firm EM Warburg Pincus has invested $300 million in 2001, has since grown to become a 11.4 million subscriber-base telecom firm and whose stock have grown five fold since its listing early in 2002. "It's valuation is $10 billion and Warburg has made more than $1 billion on the deal and still owns 5.8 percent. Bharti aims to maintain 25 percent of the Indian cellular market, which is forecast to reach 180 million customers in 2008," the magazine said. Commenting on Wipro, the magazine said the company had branched out from offerings such as software development, R&D and application maintenance to providing remote infrastructure management, financial services and applications and product testing. All that while maintaining its position as the world's largest third party R&D provider. "Wipro, which gets the majority of its revenue from the U.S., is pushing further in Europe and expects to make some acquisitions this year," it added. BusinessWeek said Satyam had finally managed to break the jinx of being the No. 4 in the Indian software industry. Satyam will hit the $1 billion revenue mark this year, thanks to expansion into new areas such as infrastructure management and software for engineering processes in the auto and defense industries, it said. "Satyam has more than $1 million contracts from its clients and is wooing clients in Europe, Latin America and Northern Asia."

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