Tech Mahindra claims it has entered league of top 20 global services brands

IT firm Tech Mahindra on Sunday said it has entered into the Top-20 global tech services brands list (by brand value) in 2017,as per an independent assessment by a valuation and strategy consultancy, Brand Finance.

It also said the company has potential to be in the top-5 technology services brands by 2020.

Tech Mahindra has been ranked at No 14, with an impressive growth of 21 per cent over the previous fiscal, a joint release by Tech Mahindra and Brand Finance said.

"Tech Mahindra has delivered excellent brand value growth of 21 per cent. Its brand transformation journey from being an Information Technology player to a Digital Transformation partner has shown great progress," Brand Finance Founder and CEO David Haigh said.

"With its new brand promise of 'Connected World,Connected Experiences and the right brand investments, Tech Mahindra has all the potential to be in the top 5 by 2020," he added.

Tech Mahindra said it has recently embarked on a massive brand building campaign globally forging strategic partnerships with several Global Media Groups, local Governments and Trade Councils, to bring alive its 'Connected World, Connected Experiences' promise.

The company aspires to consolidate and improve its position through significant brand investments aligned to its core strategy in delivering tangible 'experience' outcomes to its 900+ customers worldwide, it said.

"We have embraced Digital Transformation as the bedrock of our brand journey, at a time when connectedness and experiences are the fundamentals for any business and consumer across all aspects of daily living," Tech Mahindra Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Jagdish Mitra said.
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Indian IT eyes crores of rupees in revenue as firms rush to get GST-ready

India's information technology (IT) industry is likely to benefit in a big way as the goods and services tax (GST) roll-out leads to companies spending a few thousand crores of rupees in becoming GST-ready.

While many large businesses, with thousands of partners and customers spread across the country, are spending “significantly” to upgrade their IT infrastructure, the Union government will also invest in setting up the technology infrastructure for GST and its maintenance.

GST is slated to be rolled out from July 1 and will replace the existing tax compliance system for businesses.

“For the GST regime, businesses and organisations will have to upgrade the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and billing systems. It will be a very large and complex transformation and, therefore, it will create a huge opportunity for the IT services companies,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief executive, Greyhound Research.

Gogia believes that it would not only bring in opportunities for technology services, but also for professional services to simplify the taxation and compliance processes for various organisations. In fact, technology services, professional services and necessary hardware upgradation put together, businesses may spend, Gogia added, few thousand crore rupees.

Infosys, India’s second largest IT services firm, bagged a five-year contract worth Rs 1,380 crore in 2015 to implement the GST Network — the nodal agency that will implement the technology and the IT backbone for the unified tax regime, along with the maintenance for it.
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BSNL-MTNL merger plan to be placed before Cabinet by June

The Department of Telecom is planning to place merger proposal of loss-making public sector firms BSNL and MTNL before the Cabinet by June, according to a parliamentary panel report.

"On the plan for merger of BSNL and MTNL, the same would taken to Cabinet before June," the Standing Committee on Information Technology chaired by BJP MP Anurag Thakur said in its report.

The former telecom secretary J S Deepak has informed the panel that the Department of Telecom is working on a plan but "would not say that we have a plan of integrating these two companies in phases".

Deepak said that merger of PSU like Air India and Indian Airlines has not been a happy experience.

"...But we realised that there would be some synergy in merger. We may have to do it in stages and we are working to develop a plan. I would want to take it to Cabinet before the end of June," he said.

Deepak was last month shifted with "immediate effect" from the telecom ministry and made officer on special duty in the commerce department.

The panel was informed that both the state-run telecom firms are dogged by various issues like poor quality service, lack of investment, continuous loss and MTNL is even borrowing money to meet its day to day expenses.

Deepak informed the panel that there are 3 lakh employees without required skill in BSNL and MTNL that incur liability of Rs 1,000 crore per month wage bills.

The panel recommended to the DoT that it should look into possibility of skilling the unskilled employees and should come out with a revised VRS proposal for those who cannot be skilled.

"With regard to merger of BSNL and MTNL , the Committee recommends that the case of merger of Air India and Indian Airlines should be carefully examined while developing a merger plan and the same should be implemented with the objective to make them strong," the panel said. (READ MORE)