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Tata Group transforming into MNC
Mumbai: The International Finance Corporation has identified the Tata Group as one of the emerging `southern multinationals.' At present exports contribute 18 per cent of the group's total revenues and the company is targeting to reach 20 per cent by next year.

Currently, overseas business, growing by 37 per cent annually, accounts for 25 per cent of the group's revenues of US$18.2bn. The group expects this to be 35 percent by 2010.

Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors and Tata Steel will be the drivers of the growth in overseas business. Though the Tata Group's priority is to strengthen its position in India by taking advantage of the growing opportunities within the country, group companies are expanding overseas operations in line with the group's international strategy, the official said.
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GAIL to foray into NLD telephony
Mumbai: Gas Authority of India (GAIL) is planning to enter the fast growing Rs80,000 crore telecom market. The state owned company is acquiring a new NLD licence for entering the national long distance telephony segment.

It is launching project 'Triveni', for which it has joined hands with Powergrid and Railtel to create the second biggest optic fibre network in India with a reach of 60,000 km across the length and width of the country.

The licence would enable the company to provide virtual private network (VPN) service to the entire corporate sector and in particular 500 business houses who are already buying natural gas and are well connected with the optical fibre cables (OFC) network.
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Grabal Alok to pick up stake in UK retailing co.
Mumbai: Grabal Alok Impex is acquiring a 16 per cent stake in a large UK-based retailing company through its subsidiary. The company is likely to raise its stake in the UK company to 26 per cent in a year's time.Grabal Alok said it plans to incorporate this subsidiary in order to facilitate overseas joint ventures and acquisitions.

The board also plans to preferentially allot 20 lakh warrants, convertible into equity shares, to foreign investors at a price determined according to SEBI guidelines.
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Liberty group to manufacture sanitary ware
Jaipur: Liberty group, which specialises in manufacture and marketing of footwear, is foraying into the manufacture of santitary ware and has begun commercial production at its recently established sanitary ware project in Rajasthan.

The company has set up a Rs100-crore project, under the name of Liberty Whiteware, which would produce international quality ceramic sanitary wares in technical collaboration with Sacmi Imola of Italy.

The company would introduce its products by December end this year or early January 2006.
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Dolphin Offshore bags Rs.3 crore contract from L&T
Mumbai: Dolphin Offshore Enterprises has received an order worth Rs3 crore from Larsen & Toubro, for its pipeline replacement project (PRP). L&T has awarded the contract for phase I topside modification, hook up and commissioning works related with 16 modifications covered under Mumbai High South, Heera and Neelam Fields.
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Car sales up by 7.6 per cent in October
New Delhi: Domestic car sales increased by 7.6 per cent in October to 79,403 units as against 73,772 units in the same month last year, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers Association (SIAM).

Motorcycles sales increased by 28.8 per cent to 6,23,434 units as against 4,84,008 units in the same month a year ago in the domestic market in the month of October.

Commercial vehicles sales were higher by 18 per cent at 31,663 units during the month as against 26,645 units in the same period last year.
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Foreign companies approach BHEL for nuclear technology tie-ups
New Delhi: A large number of US, Russian and French companies have approached power equipment major BHEL for developing and deploying technology for nuclear power projects in India.

Officials at BHEL said the company is in talks with some of the companies and may tie up with some of them to enhance capabilities.
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Microsoft, HP to offer IT solutions for SMBs in India
New Delhi: Microsoft Corporation India and Hewlett-Packard India (HP) are launching the 'Smart Office' initiative to offer SMB organisations out-of-the-box IT solutions tailor made to suit their needs.

The two companies plan to offer products that fall under the D260, Dx6120 and Dc7100 desktop PC ranges. These desktops will be offered with a 3-year warranty from HP.

On the server front, HP will offer its Proliant range of servers with Windows Server 2003 and Windows Small Business Server 2003.

The desktop solutions will be priced between Rs42,000 and Rs50,000. HP's extensive channel and service network will also address the after sales support requirements.

The desktop and server solutions sold under this new initiative are targeted to meet the needs of SMB customers in India by providing them with the tools and resources to enable their businesses to grow and evolve.
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MTNL wants carriage cost of IUC kept out of regulation
New Delhi: MTNL is planning to ask the regulator TRAI to deregulate carriage cost component under the interconnect usage charges (IUC) in national long distance tariffs, which would clear the way for slashing STD tariffs between Delhi and Mumbai.

MTNL officials said for this to happen TRAI has to bring out a circular putting the Rs1.10 ceiling on the fixed carriage cost portion of the IUC charges on forbearance (deregulation) to enable the NLD tariffs to come down.

The company says it would write to TRAI shortly to issue a circular allowing forbearance in the carriage cost.

The current STD rate of MTNL from Delhi-Mumbai is Rs2.40 a minute and carriage charges are paid by the access providers to the NLD operators to carry the traffic.

TRAI issued Interconnection Usage Charges Regulation on October 29, 2003 wherein it had specified cost-based carriage charges ranging from Re 0.20 to Rs 1.10 saying: "Forbearance for carriage charge for long distance calls will be introduced once carrier selection by customer is implemented."
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Satyam in tie up with Hungarian institute
Mumbai: Satyam has announced a tie- up with Hungary's premier science and IT institute, MTA SZTAKI. The tie-up includes joint efforts in areas of emerging technologies such as grid computing and data mining.

The company would market MTA SZTAKI's products, develop technological platforms and new service offerings.

Satyam said it would benefit from the access to world-class research and service capabilities in order to serve its expanding client base with customised offerings in these areas.

This partnership would help strengthen SZTAKI's technical competencies with Satyam's go-to-market and delivery capabilities and offer synergistic benefits for both the organisations.
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Reliance Info offers 'full money back' scheme
Mumbai: Reliance Infocomm is offering a 'full money back scheme' under which a subscriber will get the handset free of cost with a new connection.

Under the scheme, the customer will get an LG 2340 handset priced at Rs2,500 with talk-time value of an equivalent amount, the company said in a release. The limited period offer is valid for pre-paid as well as post-paid customers across the country on new connections only, it said.

Pre-paid subscribers can use the talk-time value of Rs2,500 without recharging their account for 90 days from the date of activation of the handset, it said.

Unutilised talk time value, if any, can be carried forward by recharging the prepaid account with any of the existing regular recharge vouchers.

The free talk-time value would be credited to customer's bills in six equated monthly instalments for post paid customers and the added talk time can be utilised for making local, STD calls to any network, sending SMS, downloading ring tone and accessing a host of applications on R World, according to the release.
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Tata Motors to launch Daewoo HCVs in India
Jamshedpur: Tata Motors has announced that it will launch the 'Novus' range of heavy commercial vehicles (HCV) from its manufacturing facility here in collaboration with Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicles Company of South Korea. The Novus range would be optimised to Indian conditions.

Initially the company will launch tippers from the Novus range followed by tractor-trailers, dumpers and cargo vehicles.

Initially, the HCVs would have an import content of around 75 per cent, which would be gradually reduced. The company has set up a new plant in Jamshedpur for manufacturing the Novus range and is part of the ongoing Rs6,000 crore capital expenditure plan of Tata Motors earmarked for the next five years.

Daewoo had been exporting the Novus range to countries such as New Zealand, Morrocco, Ireland and South Africa. It would also be exported now to countries like Japan, China and some African countries in future from India.
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TCS seeks major change in business mix
Bangalore: In a few years time Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will have a changed business mix.

The company has identified five main growth areas — products, BPO, infrastructure, engineering services and consulting and is planning to scale up each one of these.

At present more than 85-90 per cent of TCS's stand-alone revenue comes from core IT services (application development, maintenance, enterprise solutions implementation). These accounted for US$1.7-1.8bn of the turnover of US$2.3bn in 2004-05. The company is planning that each of the other five areas would contribute 5-10 per cent of total turnover in the next few years. For this each segment would have to grow to US$500-800mn. Hence the target is to build a US$3bn plus business out of these five areas in the next few years.

The company feels that if these five segments can bring in 25-30 per cent of total revenue, then the share of core IT services revenue will be in the range of 60-70 per cent.
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