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Both nations benefit from high-tech partnership

OVER the past few years, China and India have entered into a unique partnership. Making use of China's highly developed infrastructure and relying on its own world-class training and technical facilities, India has brought its powerful information technology industry to the world's economic powerhouse.

Some would say it's a marriage of convenience with each country boasting attributes the other desires. But China and India are similar in many ways: both face challenges in regard to their massive populations and both are economically successful, despite the rest of the world's downturn.

Shanghai seems to have become the center of this new relationship. Indian IT giants TCS Global, Mahindra Satyam, NIIT Global, Infosys, HCL and Wipro have all relocated part of their businesses to the city. Aided by the determination of Chinese government to attract IT companies, India is helping shape China's IT landscape.

Infosys Technologies Ltd defines, designs and delivers IT-enabled business solutions. Its China subsidiary, Infosys Technologies (China) Co Ltd, headquartered in Shanghai, has scaled up to over 3,000 consultants to provide IT and BPO services to clients through Shanghai development, Hangzhou BPO centers and a recently opened training center in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province.

Infosys plans to invest US$135 million to build a new campus in Shanghai. By the end of this year, the number of employees will reach more than 8,000. Infosys China CEO Rangarajan Vellamore was recently awarded Shanghai Magnolia Silver Award.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is Asia's largest global software solutions and consulting services enterprise. It employs 19,000 people and boasts six of the US Fortune 10 companies as clients. In 2002, it arrived in Shanghai, and today has five delivery centers across China.

Its contribution to the Chinese banking sector has ensured a hugely reduced cost of ownership, and has streamlined many banking systems. In March last year, Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank hired TCS to manage the development of new products and to give it a competitive edge.

What TCS is doing in China is not unique. Satyam Computer Services located in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Hi-tech Park, along with their campuses in Nanjing and Guangzhou, is one of the largest Indian IT enterprises in China. Although classified as a wholly owned foreign enterprise, 95 percent of its China-based employees are recruited locally, and in 2008 its general manager was awarded Shanghai's "Top 10 IT Talent," the first Indian to receive this honor.

All these corporations focus on providing personnel support to Chinese IT structures. The market is, however, equally open to the raw materials of the IT industry, as Sterlite Technology knows well.

When the company first came to China from India in 2003, having never operated abroad before, it was marketing a minuscule quantity of fiber optic cables, the basic component of high speed, transcontinental Internet communications. By 2010, Sterlite was in partnership with a Chinese manufacturer in Jiangsu Province and today has a 7 percent share of the huge Chinese market.

Clients include all three of China's largest telecommunication corporations: China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile.

India has long been at the forefront of this industry, and some of its companies in China are in the business of passing on this expertise to locals.

Indian company NIIT Global focuses on IT training and software literacy. It operates in the areas of systems integration, solutions for business, engineering, manufacturing, finance, geometrics, networking, communications, IT consultancy, application software development, multimedia software and career and corporate IT training - all sectors China is keen to build upon.

As a testament to its success, most businesses NIIT Global works with have achieved the highest certification from the United Kingdom's BVQI, a leading quality management organization. NIIT was the pathfinder for Indian enterprises in China, arriving in Shanghai in 1997. Now it has 183 franchised operations in China and runs training courses in conjunction with 129 Chinese universities.

Gaining certification from NIIT has allowed Chinese graduates to find jobs, both international and domestic, with companies such as Ford, HP and IBM.

With a history going back almost 70 years, Wipro has evolved into a leading global IT company, pioneering many an innovation in IT services, outsourcing and research and development.

Established just seven years in China, the Indian company today has more than 50 projects, at six offices - including three development centers in Shanghai and Chengdu in Sichuan Province - and 30 customers.

Wipro has invested in more than 10 large offshore development centers and launched more than 15 competencies, such as Mobility/Android, ATG Ecommerce, as well as SAP and Oracle to address global customers.

In China, Wipro has handled deals in IT and outsourcing.

In addition to its IT business, Wipro also has invested in China by setting up manufacturing operations for its consumer care and lighting group at Dongguan, Guangdong Province, and infrastructure group at Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. These factories now employ more than 1,000 people - more than 90 percent of whom are locals - and are key manufacturing hubs in the Wipro operation.

The Indian IT industry clocked revenues of US$101 billion last year which is expected to grow to US$225 billion by 2020. It employs 2.5 million workers in more than 5,000 companies and services almost 70 nations in 35 different languages.

(Story compiled by Calum Anderson)




 

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