1 February 2005

A New Year and Another Newsletter...

Welcome to NIIT’s second edition of its customer Newsletter. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all of our readers a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

In this edition, we have a featured story on TNCI, with whom NIIT have developed the UK's first nationwide commercially operated TV channel exclusively on commuter trains. We are also proud to welcome a host of new customers to NIIT.

We are really excited about some of the events we have scheduled; our next seminar campaign investigates Web accessibility and features guest speakers from the DTI and industry.

NIIT customers came together to take full advantage of our first Customer Group Meeting (CGM) in December, the response was so great that the second meeting is already planned.

2004 was a really exciting and busy year where we hosted 4 seminars, sponsored a number of industry events and gained a record number of new customers. We look forward to 2005 as we plan to provide more marketing campaigns and events.

Dear Diary: A Day in the Life of a Senior VP...

Saturday 22nd January 2005
Do readers of this Newsletter ever stop and wonder what it is like working in sales for an organisation like NIIT Technologies? I am often asked about my experiences of working in a mixed cultured team in the UK market for an Indian Services firm.

You might imagine that there are many ups and downs, triumphs and disasters, strange and funny incidents and lots more besides. You’d be bang on! So, amongst the more formal articles, I am kicking off a diary for this Newsletter to tell you about some of the UK team’s more interesting vignettes.

Last week we initiated the annual budgeting cycle at NIIT, it’s called ‘Perspective Planning’ and it’s a centrepiece of our longer-term thinking. The whole team including the senior sales, marketing and delivery people got together in a beautiful country house in Stratford-upon-Avon to work out our strategy for the UK over the next three years.

I made the mistake of leaving my credit card behind the bar on the first night it made the debates about future directions quite exciting at the time! But then at the first session the next morning I was met with a sea of pasty blank faces and a complete lack of energy. Many cups of coffee later, the temperature of the meeting was back up to a nice simmer! One thing we discovered was a real revelation - NIIT is in a class of its own. There are seven tier one players in our sector with large clients and revenues - and up to twenty tier three players. But if any one firm is in tier two - it’s us. We weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry. As Ed from our Sales Team remarked, "I suppose being unique is good. But it isn’t comfortable."

So we all decided there and then to dedicate ourselves to one purpose over the coming months and years - to become a top tier organisation in the focussed verticals of our market. That ambition will mean that everything will have to change - all the different functions, our attitudes, our efforts, our resources, and our investments - they’re all going to be different. But it’s going to be an exciting roller-coaster ride, and we’re going to go for it.

February and March will be absolutely critical to getting our boat floated - so I look forward to the challenge, and to telling you about it in the next Newsletter.

David West, Senior VP NIIT Technologies Limited (UK)

People News...

Sanjay Saxena has been promoted to Business Development Manager Europe, for the Transportation sector and will focus his attentions on new business within the Transport Industry in both the UK and across Europe. After successfully driving business within the Airlines sector, Sanjay quotes, "I am excited about this challenge and would like to leverage NIIT's capabilities to make NIIT the preferred supplier in the area IT services for the transport sector".

Ian Hamilton joined NIIT in October 04 as a senior BDM and will be responsible for developing new opportunities in the Public Sector and Telecommunications. He has over five years experience in working within an offshore software development organisation and has worked with international organisations such as United Nations at their HQ in New York, Geneva and Vienna.

Tanya Gardiner has recently joined the NIIT marketing team to provide consultancy for many of the new marketing initiatives within the UK. "This is a very exciting time to join NIIT; providing the tools to enable the company to meet its growth plan is a vital role - and one that I relish" says Gardiner.

Let Me Entertain You...

TNCI has created 360 Onboard, Britain's first near real time TV channel designed to enhance the commuter rail travel experience. 360 Onboard now offers passengers the latest national news, sport, business and showbiz news from its studios at ITN along with local news and weather. 360 also brings passengers up-to-date travel information about how trains and connections are running. In response to demand from passengers, TNCI and NIIT have developed the UK's first satellite and wireless delivered TV system exclusively on commuter trains and are now rolling it out nationwide.

360 Onboard enables commuters to enjoy the channel, without any associated cost either to themselves or the train company. The unique way in which 360 operates commercially allows revenue to be obtained solely through advertising and sponsorship, potentially reaching over a billion commuter rail journeys in the UK annually.

As a new venture that could undoubtedly enable TNCI to remain a firm leader in their market, it was essential to have a very high quality solution, whilst retaining a need to keep a tight control on costs. NIIT was perfectly placed to give the scope to achieve this.

Graham Roberts, Operations Director of TNCI has been working with his team on a daily basis with NIIT. He says: "The project has gone smoothly throughout, with an excellent relationship developing between ourselves and NIIT with considerable added value as a result. The excellence of the technical and functional design of the software and the high quality of the deliverables has ensured the project has entirely met our business objectives, we are continuing in our working relationship to further advance the capability of our equipment and looking forward to an ongoing successful partnership with NIIT".

20 New Clients...

NIIT Technologies Limited broke its own record in 2004 by signing up no less than 20 New Clients.

Keeping ahead of the competition is no mean feat, but that's exactly what NIIT Technologies UK have achieved.

During the year to December 2004, NIIT Technologies Limited (the UK arm of NIIT) has closed 20 new clients; 12 from the Software Solutions Business.

Congratulations go to all NIIT Business Development Managers for their hard work, but in particular, Ed Gill, Sanjay Saxena, Harpreet Julka and Rajiv Dey, along with a number of Channel Partners are praised on generating significant success within new client accounts. These new clients are derived from a variety of market sectors from manufacturing, retail, technology and finance.

Generally, new clients say that they are coming to NIIT for its quality and flexibility. They like NIIT’s transparency and openness and the long term partnership approach.
Seminar Announcement: Widening The Net
Is your website in breach of the law? Are you electronic services reaching the socially disadvantaged? Are your services potentially missing out on 10% of the population? Do you understand how to build intuitive communications with your citizens?

NIIT are hosting a Free seminar on Wednesday 16th March at the Cavendish Conference Centre, London.

This event, Widening The Net: Moving Citizen Accessibility of Electronic Services To The Next Level, covers the less discussed issue of Web inaccessibility.

This Free seminar has a host of prominent guest speakers including Rupert Marsh, Head of Internet and New Media - DTI, Nick Chapallaz - ESRI, Kevin Thomson - Communication Foundation and Dr Sugata Mitra - NIIT. Combined they will offer their expert advice on how to ensure electronic information is presented in a more helpful way, how latest technology can help identify key citizen needs, how to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) through revolutionary web and windows tools, and how a global project has taught IT to millions of under-privileged children.

If your organisation uses Web technology, then this Free half day seminar will provide an invaluable insight into providing endorsed web accessibility for all, whilst avoiding the pitfalls of legislation.

Link to on-line seminar registration HERE.  

What's This India Business?
'For a Westerner the immediate problem in face-to-face negotiation in India is body language. There is sometimes nothing for it but to close your eyes, sometimes literally as well as metaphorically, as much as possible. Otherwise every fibre in your being will cry out that what you are seeing is at variance with what you are hearing.

It is well known that Indians roll their heads when listening to other people. It definitely isn't a shake of the head, because it is a rolling action. As a westerner, however, you are likely to experience it as the persistent and insidious image of someone shaking their head at what you are saying.

The Indian head movement is an extension of being polite and is not intended to give offence. It is both highly visible and, within its own perspective, absolutely correct, and is a way of showing that every word is being appreciated. The trouble is that it gives westerners the wrong signals, even when you know what is happening.

I have been making presentations and having discussions with Indians for years and I am comparatively used to seeing a whole room of people with rolling heads demonstrating that they are listening intently, but to me apparently registering disagreement. I am used to it, but remain entirely uncomfortable. As I watch, my left upper brain tells me that this is logically absolutely fine. My right upper brain finds it artistically stimulating. My lower brain - both left and right - says "Run!".’

The above excerpt is from 'What's this India Business? Offshoring, Outsourcing and the Global Services Revolution written by Paul Davies. NIIT are proud to sponsor this publication by Nicholas Brealey Publishing, which has chapters covering everything from the Indian economy, identifying suitable partners, your arrival in India, Dress Code, Due Diligence and Avoiding Risks, Corporate Social Responsibility, and much more. For your chance to win a copy (retail price £20, available at all good bookshops), simply send an email to marketing@niit.co.uk telling us what quality standard NIIT have been accredited (hint: a good place to look for the answer is the NIIT website). Remember to include your contact details. The first five responses will receive a copy of the book absolutely free.

Industry Links: FT NASSCOM

NIIT have been closely associated with NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies) for some time, and were pleased to sponsor the Financial Times NASSCOM Conference in November. The conference tackled head on issues such as data protection, confidentiality and boosting the sector appeal.  
Building a People Centric World
Caught in the eternal triangle of People, Process and Technology, most software organisations across the world have focused their efforts on Process and Technology. With standards like the ISO and SEI CMM and CMMI (Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model), it has been fairly easy for software companies to scale up the quality chain and aim for higher maturity processes.

NIIT has taken steps to assure customers that quality professionals are presented throughout the lifetime of a project.

P-CMM Level 3 (People CMM) is a quality model from SEI that provides a framework for implementing workforce practices in a staged manner and complements CMMi. Used to establish a culture of excellence, it sets priorities for improvement actions and integrates workforce development with process improvement.

NIIT underwent a rigorous 10 day assessment lead by a nine member team from KPMG recently. The exercise comprised of a 104 staff survey answering over 130 questions; a four day review of 998 documents; and an interview process that involved 114 people lasting 6 days.

With that little exercise completed, NIIT look forward to going for level 5 assessment next year.

Gain Competitive Advantage: a Success

In November 2004, NIIT held another of its prominent seminars, this time discussing the five areas of competitive advantage that could be applied to businesses. In addition to presentations by NIIT covering successful outsource/offshore partnering, guest speakers included Mike Dodd, from Forrester Research who described how you can achieve competitive advantage whilst managing the risks. Paul Davies of Onshore Offshore Ltd presented how organisations are able to create further advantage from existing outsourcing relationships.
First CGM Launched

Arvind Thakur, CEO of NIIT Technologies Limited was pleased to be a guest speaker at NIIT's UK Customer Group Meeting in December 2004.

"This is a significant and interesting initiative by the UK BU, enabling customers to share experiences" said Arvind.

The next CGM is to be held on 16th February 2005. If you are an NIIT customer and would like to attend, please email tanya@niit.co.uk.  

NIIT Technologies is a diversified global IT Services company offering e-Commerce, CRM Solutions, Offshore Development, Applications Maintenance/Support, Legacy Transformation, Knowledge Solutions and Business Process Management Services. Spanning 19 countries across Europe, Asia Pacific and India, it has been working with global corporations for over two decades. NIIT understands the complex issues surrounding outsourcing and offshoring while partnering with its customers to provide practical IT Solutions.