Kampsax India, a subsidiary of Danish GIS (geographical information services) and consultancy giant Cowi, recently bagged a US $ 7.8 m contract for digitalising the UK map for the Ordnance Survey of Britain.

An export oriented unit (EOU) with offices in Gurgaon, more than 90% of the Company’s turnover currently comes from exports. The UK contract involves development of digital maps of England, Scotland and Wales over a period of five years.

Digital maps are being extensively used all over the world for supporting services like transport, communication, land records, crime analysis, disease control, crop management, business, leisure, education and administration. Mr Upadhyaya, CEO of Kampax, feels that once the field is opened up in India business worth hundreds of crores would emerge from the Indian market.

The US $ 70 b Hewlett-Packard (HP) is to establish a 600-seat customer contact centre in Bangalore, with an estimated investment of US $ 5 to 6 m. A six-storey building has already come up in the city’s IT hub – Electronic City.

The centre will exclusively provide support for US-based customers, for any of HPs wide range of consumer product viz. printers, PCs, laptops, cameras, PDAs.

The rationale supporting the move for having an ‘owned’ contact centre was to regain contact with the customer, and to retain knowledge in-house.

US investment bank Goldman Sachs is setting up a back-office support centre in Bangalore. Company spokesman Edward Naylor suggested that the move was part of the banks global expansion of functions. Though the Bangalore centre focuses on support, some jobs involve advanced skills in investment, accounting and analysis.

The move comes close on the heels of investment banks- J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley- setting up offshore equity research units in the country.

With salaries for Indian business school graduates as low as 10 per cent of those in New York and London, analysts say India is now poised to emerge as a hub for securities research, project management and underwriting.

Convergys, a US $ 2.3 b billing and customer services giant, plans to have 20,000 employees working in its Bangalore subsidiary by the end of next year.

With such a substantial leap in its headcount the Cincinnati based Company, which currently employs 7,200 employees in India, is likely to emerge as the largest call centre here. Convergys first set up in Gurgaon, India, in ’01, with a headcount of 200, followed by its centre in Bangalore. Jack Freke- President, Customer Management- Convergys Group- cited India’s potential to offer superior quality services as the reason driving the Company’s expansion plans.

The Mahindra Group recently acquired a majority stake in the California–based consulting and services firm, Bristlecone. Bristlecone provides supply chain software solutions, managed and technology services, and enterprise consulting services that cater to industries such as apparel and footwear, semiconductor, consumer goods and oil and gas. It is also an implementation partner for SAP applications.

Mahindra will consolidate its five existing subsidiaries- Mahindra Consulting (MCL), Mahindra Consulting (Singapore), Mahindra Consulting GmbH, Mahindra Consulting(US), Mahindra Intertrade (UK)- to form a new overseas joint venture company. The new overseas joint venture will be called Bristlecone, in which Mahindra will invest US $ 7 m, employing around 420 people.

Satyam Computer Services recently opened a new development centre, in the technology hub of Mississauga, Ontario. The 18th such global facility, the Satyam Canada Development Centre (SCDC) is set with hi-tech computing equipment and secure high speed connectivity to client hosts as well as other development centres in the US and India. It is likely to house 50 IT professionals.