Outsourcing: Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Executive VP and Head of Global Delivery, MPhasiS (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I see. So, you wanted to be in a space that is optimal to HP’s sweet spot, and you don’t have any conflict of interest when it comes to going to market through HP’s channels.

Gopinathan Padmanabahn: Exactly. That’s right. That’s the second reason. First and foremost, we are good at this, have several customers; we’re doing a great job, had long-term relationships.

SM: What percentage of your business is in financial services? >>>

Outsourcing: Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Executive VP and Head of Global Delivery, MPhasiS (Part 1)

Two former Citibank executives came up with the idea for MPhasiS in 1999. A merger between U.S.-based IT consulting company MphasiS Corporation and the Indian IT services company BFL Software Limited in June 2000 produced MPhasiS Limited, a global company that provides business process outsourcing services as well as applications and infrastructure services. One of the largest IT services companies in India, MPhasiS boasts revenue in excess of $1 billion.

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Gopi, let’s start with an introduction of you and your company to set a little context. >>>

Outsourcing: David Bonthrone, Executive Vice-President, Group FMG (Part 4)

SM: There is an effort in India to move certain types of outsourced functions into the smaller cities or towns, not Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore kinds of places, which are pretty crowded, pretty saturated places. Some of the types of functions that you are talking about have shown up, on my radar at least, as functions that are good for this kind of small town or rural outsourcing type of model. Have you had any exposure to this trend?

DB: I personally haven’t, though I’m sure my chairman and group CEO have. A couple of our senior executives here have got rich backgrounds in NSO, BPO, whatever kind of balance of offshore/outsourcing that one wants to talk about. >>>

Outsourcing: David Bonthrone, Executive Vice-President, Group FMG (Part 3)

SM: Talk to me about the kind of work that your Chennai operation does.

DB: We do a lot of print production work. Within that, I mean cleaning up images for printing and production. We have a fast turnaround facility that can handle a lot of volume in terms of print. That’s some traditional work on the traditional print production side, cleaning up images, getting the right colors in there and retouching facilities, laying out flat what we call flat paneling, so laying out publications. Then the enormous migration into the digitization of those assets might be everything from developing an email campaign all the way through to developing the code and hosting and maintaining it for a particular customized website, micro site or even, in the future, an e-commerce-based site. >>>

Outsourcing: David Bonthrone, Executive Vice-President, Group FMG (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let me see if I’ve got this right. The way you split the market is the holding companies have a variety of advertising agencies and new media agencies and, typically, most of them have centralized production facilities.

David Bonthorne: There’s a trend towards it.

SM: Now, the part that I didn’t quite get is, are those centralized production facilities also doing offshore development work, or is that all still on shore? >>>

Outsourcing: David Bonthrone, Executive Vice-President, Group FMG (Part 1)

When people think of outsourcing, things like customer service and Web development often come to mind. Group FMG is an international marketing solutions company with business offices in New York, London, Bangalore and Chennai. Group FMG helps clients develop brand strategies, builds e-commerce solutions and produces content that attracts customers and facilitates business growth. The company has worked with well-known brands like Microsoft, Staples, Fortnum & Mason, Sears, Kenneth Cole, and the New York Philharmonic among others.

Sramana Mitra: Hi David. Let’s start with some background about you and your company. >>>

Outsourcing: Blanca Trevino, CEO of Softtek (Part 4)

SM: Do you see migration happening from Europe, especially Spain to Latin America, of this kind of talent that you are starting to recruit?

BT: No, not really. We have not seen that. Of course, we have our people there, and we are growing in our center in Spain, but no. That’s an interesting question. I will look at that.

SM: I have read recently, because Europe has become such a nightmare from an economic situation point of view, and especially Spain. The youth unemployment there has become one of the worst nightmares. I read a few articles on migration from Spain to Latin America, so this may be something that you want to look at as a strategy to recruit people from Spain to your Mexico center or Argentina, Chile, wherever. >>>

Outsourcing: Blanca Trevino, CEO of Softtek (Part 3)

SM: How do you tackle this zero unemployment in your industry? That’s bound to create a talent war. How is the region coping with that? How do you propose to cope with that going forward?

BT: The thing is because of how deeply companies want to be part of this industry and offer services globally, some governments, certainly the Mexican government but also other governments in the region, are putting together initiatives to incentivize the industry. The universities are working very hard to have more time ready, offering different kinds of programs, not just the typical university four-year terms. Today, the zero unemployment is true, but it is also true that we see more of the universities working together with the governments, and companies like Softtek and many others are supporting those universities and understanding much better what is needed. Softtek is not just based out of one city as opposed to what happened in the beginning in India, for example. Bangalore became the city for this sort of thing. >>>