BIZ WORLD
Tata Motors Appoints Former Gm Exec Forster As Group CEO

Tata Motors has appointed Carl-Peter Forster, a former General Motors executive, as the group chief executive officer.

Forster, who was head of GM, Europe, will have overall responsibility of Tata Motors globally, including that of its British unit Jaguar and Land Rover.

Ravi Kant, who oversaw Tata Motors’s global and domestic operations, had moved last year to non-executive vice chairman. Indian retail most emerging market

The Indian retail market, the fifth largest retail destination globally, has been ranked as the most attractive emerging market for investment in the retail sector by AT Kearney’s eighth annual Global Retail Development Index (GRDI), in 2009. According to a study conducted by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), the retail sector is expected to contribute to 22 per cent of India’s GDP by 2010. With rising consumer demand and greater disposable income, it is projected to grow to US$ 700 billion by 2010 with an expected annual growth rate of 30 percent, according to a report by global consultancy Northbridge Capital.

India is poised to become the fourth largest economy by 2020. International fashion brands have made an entry in Indian market and have popularized their product lines.

An expanding and organized domestic market will deepen the synergy between the domestic and the export market and strengthen India’s presence in the high-value segment of the global trade and investment. Fashion and lifestyle brands will enjoy global awareness and exposure in foreign market and carve a niche in the fashion fraternity.

Dishman In Pact

With Us-Based Codexis The 217,000,000 dollar Dishman Pharmaceuticals, an Ahmedabad-based Contract Research and Manufacturing Services (CRAMS) major, has entered into a strategic alliance with a California-based biotech company — Codexis Inc.

The company announced that the partnership would let Dishman use Codexis’ proprietary enzymatic bio-catalysis technology for the manufacturing of building blocks, intermediates and API’s for innovator pharmaceuticals companies. The five-year exclusive agreement promises to make Dishman the only Indian company to have a high-grade technology platform in the Indian CRAMS segment. The technology deals with reduction of chiral compounds in the APIs and provide cheaper, cleaner, greener processes of manufacturing at a lower cost of production.

Codexis Inc, also announced that it has entered into two separate collaborations in pharmaceutical manufacturing with Dishman Pharmaceuticals & Chemicals and AMPAC Fine Chemicals LLC (AFC), a subsidiary of American Pacific Corporation. “These agreements expand the application of Codexis technology to a broadened pipeline of branded innovator pharmaceutical products.” a company release of Codexis says. According to the company, this alliance will benefit Codexis and its customers by enabling Codexis to offer production of both intermediates and final APIs at Dishman’s manufacturing site. Dishman will be a preferred contract manufacturer for Codexis and will be able to offer the technology to its own customers. In addition, the both companies will work exclusively on certain select accounts (CRAMs client).

Lockheed To Deliver Hercules In Dec, Expects More Tenders

American defence giant Lockheed Martin has said it will deliver the first C-130J Hercules aircraft in December this year to the Indian Air Force and expressed hope to receive Letter of Request (LOR) for six more planes. “We are hoping to receive the LOR for providing six additional aircraft by this year but can’t say when,” Lockheed’s India Vice President Orville Prins said. He said the company was preparing for the delivery of the C-130J to the IAF and was ready to deliver the first aircraft in December this year, three months ahead of their planned induction in the first quarter of 2011.

In 2008, IAF had ordered six C-130Js for Special Forces, with an option for six more as follow on order. Lockheed has already helped IAF to set up infrastructure for basing 12 C- 130Js at its Hindan air base.

Talking further about the C-130J contract, Prins said the order includes three years of initial support, crew training and maintenance technicians, spares, ground support and test equipment, and a team of technical specialists who will be based in India during the three year initial support period.

Also included is India-unique operational equipment designed to increase Special Operations capabilities. He added that several other departments including the Border Security Force, the Coast Guard and the weather department have shown interest in procuring the aircraft.

Us Firm To Set Up Super Speciality Hospital

US-based Euthenic Group Consortium has expressed interest to set up a 1,000-bed super speciality hospital in Orissa at an investment of $ 325,000,000. A delegation of the consortium met Orissa’s health and family welfare minister Prasanna Acharya and discussed the proposed project. The team led by its director told the state government that the proposed project would be completed within 18 to 24 months after getting the required land for the purpose. The project, which was said to boost health tourism in the state, would require 100 acre of land, they said.

Deloitte to hire 12,000 more in India

International accounting and consulting firm Deloitte LLP will hire an additional 12,000 people in India over the next 30 months. A large part of the new recruits will be earmarked for Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. “Most of the new additions would be in our existing centres,” said Hari Kumar, Managing Director of Deloitte in India. At present, Deloitte has 11,500 employees in 13 cities in India, which will be increased by an additional 500 by the end of March 31, 2010. The company is likely to stick to the mix of 40:60 among freshers and laterals. “We are going to the IITs, IIMs and top 25 business schools,” he said.

Incidentally, the attrition rate at Deloitte (which claims it does not lay off people) is nearly eight per cent. Kumar said India was among the top five ‘high-growth’ countries identified by Deloitte, with the others being Brazil, Russia, China and West Asia.

Dell’s India Sales Close To $1-Billion Mark

Dell Inc, the world’s third largest PC maker, said on Friday that its business in India is now close to the $1-billion mark. The Round Rock, Texas-based company reported a 5 per cent dip in its global profit and an 11 per cent increase in global revenue during the fourth quarter, but logged a strong double-digit growth in markets such as India and China. Its revenue rose 52 per cent yearon- year in India during the fourth quarter (ending January 29), and 81 per cent in China. “We see substantial growth opportunities in India. Earlier, we were looking at large corporates but in the last two years we have been also been focusing on ramping-up the consumer and small and medium business,” Mr Steve Felice, Dell’s President of small and medium business said.

On a sequential basis, the company’s revenue grew eight per cent in India. The country now accounts for nearly two per cent of Dell’s global revenues. Mr Felice said that Dell would go after specific opportunities in e-governance solutions, in areas such as education and healthcare. China — now Dell’s second largest market globally after the US — grew 81 per cent in the just concluded quarter, driven by a slew of Government measures aimed at boosting local consumption. China now generates roughly $4 billion in annual sales, and represents about 7-8 per cent of Dell’s overall business. “The stimulus package did help. China did the right thing in stimulating growth for SMEs. China’s economy is resilient, similar to India…,” he said.

Asked if Dell is looking to maintain its current growth streak in China, Mr Felice said, “It is a lofty goal to maintain but we will grow high double digits in China.”

Amazon Looks At India To Revamp Biz

Online retailing giant Amazon.com is looking to India, as it revamps its web services architecture to meet surging traffic volumes. Seattle-based Amazon is ramping up its key e-Commerce Platform Group (eCPG) at the company’s Hyderabad development centre, as part of plans to build next-generation platform services. Sources said the group was looking at variegating its web services architecture in keeping with increasing traffic on its book retailing and e-book payment platforms.

e-CPG is expected to define a layered Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to tightly integrate a growing buyer base with Amazon’s widespread network of vendors and security services providers. It will develop core service Application Program Interfaces (APIs), aggregated APIs, web applets, data models and policy control that fit into Amazon’s modified web services architecture.

The technical leadership team in Amazon India has been getting to work on more highend payment systems and is set to grow in prominence. The Indian team has been prominent in designing cutting-edge payment systems for Amazon and the next step for the company is to create a top line-up of technical leaders out of India.

e-CPG is expected to work on new architectural and design choices, invent new features, develop distributed services and build a massively scalable and stable platform solution on various UNIX-based platforms, sources said. Amazon expects this SOA-based architecture to hold up to the challenge of high volumes. Amazon reportedly has over 420,000 titles on its virtual bookshelves. The retailer has been looking at building next-generation platform services for its ordering and vendor payment systems, under strain in recent times due to the exponential increase in traffic, spawned partly by the launch of popular e-book reader Kindle.

On January 21, Amazon had announced the coming release of its Kindle Development Kit (KDK), which will allow developers to build active content for the Kindle. A beta version was announced, with a February 2010 release date. A number of companies have already experimented with delivering active content through Kindle’s bundled browser and the KDK is likely to evolve into a new revenue- sharing model for developers.

Citi plans ‘substantial’ capital infusion in India by March

With a view to strengthen its foothold in the domestic market, the US-banking major Citibank is mulling the infusion of a “substantial amount” of capital in its Indian banking operations by next month according to a top bank official.

Though the official declined to divulge the specifics of the investment plan, market sources said that the fresh capital infusion could be above 162,400,000 USD and could even go upto 216,500,000 USD.

So far, Citigroup has infused $3.1 billion in India and is the single largest foreign direct investor in the country’s financial services industry, according to the information on its website. Out of the total investment in India, the banking arm of Citi has so far received around $2.4 billion, the official said.

The proposed additional capital infusion will equip the US-banking major to face the competition emanating from its deep-pocketed global opponents like StanChart and HSBC as well as from domestic players, to grab a larger share of the emerging market.
- [ BY Lavanya Garikina ]