Infy to hire 20k engg grads at over 8% higher salary

Bangalore: India’s second-largest software company Infosys will be inducting almost 20,000 engineering graduates this year at over 8.3 % higher salary from what was offered last year, even as the company seeks to cope with a lower demand for software services in its top export markets such as the US and Europe. 

At a time when other industry rivals such as TCS, Wipro and HCL Technologies are deferring the 
joining dates for new hires, Infosys is holding on to its commitment and that too at better salary levels than last year.

“We have increased the pay package from Rs 3 lakh per annum to over Rs 3.25 lakh per annum for those joining in June this year,” Nandita Gurjar, senior vice-president and globalhuman resources head, Infosys, told ET in an interview. “The idea is to get the best talent even during this slowdown, to provide better training and prepare them for the projects,” she added. 

Experts such as Prashant Srivastava, managing partner of Gallup Consulting, said that top tech firms want to retain their edge as preferred employers in the industry. “Proactive companies are preparing and hiring high performers for the future, as they don’t want to run after talent once economy revives in few years,” he said. 

The offer letters and dates of joining have been sent to 20,000 freshers (2008-09), and the process of joining will start from June this year. Last year, Infosys recruited almost 18,000 (2007-08) engineering graduates. 

The company has also increased the training period for new recruits from the current four months to almost eight months. “It gives them better understanding of a project because the predictability of what kind of work you will get is much lower than what it was last year,” said Ms Gurjar. Infosys visits some 1,100 engineering colleges every year. 

At a time when the US government is mulling stricter work permit regulations, Indian tech firms such as Infosys will need to deliver more projects from India. “We have been preparing from past three years to reduce our dependency on H1B visa, which is hiring more and more locals in all the countries, where we work,” said Ms Gurjar.

Infosys eyeing buyouts abroad

HYDERABAD: Infosys Technologies is on the look out for acquisitions in ERP implementation, BPO and consulting space in France, Germany and Japan, according to CEO and Managing Director of the company Kris Gopalakrishnan.

“We are also keen on companies offering services to the healthcare sector as it is not affected by the current global economic downturn,” he said on the sidelines of the southern region meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Saturday.

He hoped that the U.S. might not adopt a protectionist approach that would affect the outsourcing business. There was no impact on the outsourcing business as yet, as the new policy of withdrawal of tax concessions did not come into force. If this came into being, there could be a backlash in the U.S. impacting several companies whose revenues came from outside the country.

Most job losses were witnessed in manufacturing, retail and construction industries and it was not due to outsourcing, said Mr .Gopalakrishnan. It would be a challenging period for fresh graduates as the world economy might take some time to recover. He said that the commitments given to 18,000 campus recruits would be staggered and fresh recruitment from campuses would be delayed.

Infosys sees slowdown in getting new contracts

Banglore:Infosys Technologies Ltd, India's No. 2 software services exporter, is seeing a slowdown in getting new outsourcing contracts but has had no large-scale cancellations, its finance head said on Thursday.

The global financial crisis and economic slowdown has hit customers' budgets and put pressure on prices, but has also created buying opportunities for the cash-rich firm, Chief Financial Officer V. Balakrishnan told Reuters in an interview.

"People are very selective in their spending," he said, with companies doing what was critical and putting off other work.

"New project momentum has come down," Balakrishnan said, although Infosys had not seen "large-scale" cancellations despite the tough business environment.

Business growth could pick up in the second half of the 2009/10 fiscal year beginning April 1, he said.

India's large pool of English-speaking engineers and cheaper wages drove an outsourcing boom, but turmoil in global markets and a recession in the United States, which accounts for more than half the sector's revenue, have halted the scorching pace of growth.

Revelations of a massive accounting fraud at Satyam Computer Services Ltd, India's fourth-ranked software services firm, further dented prospects for the export-driven sector, Balakrishnan said.

"There are short-term concerns about Infosys and other software firms' earnings, which may be flat to negative at least for the next six months," said K.K. Mital, head of portfolio management services at Global Capital.

"But these concerns will go off as soon as the global economy stabilises."

Balakrishnan said a weaker rupee, which has fallen about 5.5 percent this year after dropping 19.1 percent in 2008, gave some buffer to profit margins in the current fiscal year. The rupee hit a record low of 52.2 per dollar on Tuesday.

The pricing environment was tough but Infosys was trying to mitigate the impact on earnings by moving more jobs to low-cost centres in India and improving the employee productivity.

"In some long-term relationships, we would have compromised on the prices because we have to reduce the pain points and make it work for the long term," he said.

Last week, Chief Executive Kris Gopalakrishnan said Infosys expected slow IT services business for the foreseeable future as the global economic slump forced clients to delay technology spending, and that the firm was taking cost-control measures.

ACQUISITIONS

Nasdaq-listed Infosys, which gets most of its revenue from the United States, is looking for acquisitions in Germany, France and Japan to boost growth.

Balakrishnan said Infosys, which has cash reserves of about $2 billion, would be interested in buying a technology company with annual revenues under $200 million to tap business opportunities in sectors like energy, utilities and healthcare.

"Most of the assets are reasonably priced in this environment," he said.

Infosys' consulting business unit, which has been a drag on earnings and made a net loss of $2.7 million in the December quarter, was likely to break even during 2009/10, he said.

Balakrishnan said Infosys, which had 103,078 staff at the end of 2008, was not planning major layoffs but poor performers would be asked to leave.

"In the past few years, probably we were more lenient. Now we are stricter on performance," he said. "The bottom 5 percent of the company who (are) not performing well, we may let them go."

Shares in Infosys, whose market value has fallen about 20 percent to 680 billion rupees ($13 billion) over the past 12 months, ended down 1.3 percent at 1,182.80 rupees in a Mumbai market that fell nearly 3 percent.

Sharekhan recommends Infosys Technologies

The macro business environment has worsened further since the last commentary by Infosys Technologies’ (Infosys) management.

In the recent interaction, the management has indicated higher than expected pricing pressure, project cancellations and considerable decline in the IT budgets of its clients.

The situation has been further aggravated by the banking and financial services clients, with large global players like the Bank of America, Citibank, American International Group (AIG) and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) looking for further bailout packages.

In addition, the possible nationalisation of banks and the anti-outsourcing rhetoric getting shriller put a question mark on the volume growth in the next fiscal.

Rupee impact

On the positive side, the continued depreciation in the rupee has emerged as a significant tail wind for tech companies including Infosys.

The rupee has depreciated by around 6.5% in the past one month alone and is likely to remain weak. Infosys, with a relatively lower hedging exposure and marked to market (MTM) hedging policy, is likely to be among the key beneficiaries of the rupee depreciation.

In our view, if the rupee continues to remain weak and stablises at an average rate of Rs51-51.5 for FY2010, it would largely offset the impact of lower volume/pricing and cross currency head winds.

Outlook

As per our analysis, the impact on Infosys’ revenue growth would be limited to a decline of just 0.3%, as the gain of 9.7% resulting from the change in the exchange rate assumption to Rs51/USD for FY2010 would largely mitigate the loss of 4.7% and 5.3% arising from cross currency head winds and lower pricing/volume assumption (a 5% decline in pricing and a flattish growth in volume) respectively.

Even on the earning level, the impact would be limited to 0.4% only.

Consequently, we maintain our FY2010 earnings estimate and would revise the same after Q4FY2009 results and would wait for the management’s commentary to get more clarity on the demand environment.

We continue to believe that Infosys is relatively better equipped to sail through the tough environment on account of its relatively premium pricing, operating leverage and better management quality.

We maintain our BUY recommendation with a revised price target of Rs1,354.

Hyderabad may get largest Infy campus

HYDERABAD: Going by current indications, Hyderabad is all set to house Infosys' largest campus in the country. Even though negotiations are on,the Indian IT bellwether is likely to set up its second campus in the city spread over 400-700 acres at Maheshwaram, close to the upcoming international airport. 

A high-level Infosys team, which deals with infrastructure issues is expected to be in town later this week to have a close look at the land being offered to them. 

The team will also indicate the amount of land it wants. The land will be offered to the company at government rates — which is much less than the market rate. The government is willing to give up to 1,000 acres to the company, but the corporate wants much less. 

Infosys' largest campus till now is in Mysore where it is sprawled over 325 acres and Bangalore, where the company is located on 80 acres of land. 

A high-level team was to visit Hyderabad on January 27. Since the CM was not available on that day — as his mother had passed away — the team dropped the visit... 

Photoshop Secret Shortcuts

It is proven that by using software shortcuts can boost up productivity. Here are 30 secret Photoshop shortcuts. Well, what I mean by "secret" is that these shortcuts are not documented in the menus. Keep reading and you will find how these shortcuts can speed up your productivity. I bet you don’t know all of them.

Note: this article is written in Mac Photoshop format. If you are using PC, Cmd = Ctrl and Opt = Alt.

1. Drag selection
   With the Marquee tool, drag on the document (do not release the mouse yet), now hold down Spacebar, it will let you drag the undefined selection.

   

2. Navigate the document left or right
   Hold down the Cmd key and scroll up or down allows you to navigate the document left or right. For example, hold down Cmd + scroll up will navigate to right.

   

3. Browse the font list
   Put your cursor in the font list dropdown, you can browse the font list by pressing arrow Up or Down key.

   

4. Scale font size
   Select the text that you want to scale the font size, press Cmd + Shift + > or <>

   

5. Zoom with the scroll wheel
   You can zoom in / out by Cmd + Opt + scroll up or down.

   

6. Drag to adjust numberic value
   Mouseover the input box, hold down Cmd + drag left or right to increase / decrease. Hold down Cmd + Opt or Shift key and drag can change the value in decimal or 10 interval. This shortcut works in all dialog palettes.

   

7. Scroll to adjust numeric value
   Put the cursor in the input box, scroll up or down to increase / decrease value. This shortcut works in all dialog palettes.

   

8. Arrow up / down to adjust numeric value
   Put the cursor in the input box, press arrow Up or Down to increase / decrease. Hold down Shift and press arrow Up or Down will change value in 10 interval.

   

9. Zoom to 100%
   Double click on the Zoom tool will zoom document to 100%.

   

10. Collapse or expand all layer groups
    You can collapse or expand all root-level layer groups by holding down Cmd + click on the triangle icon. Hold down Cmd + Opt + click on the triangle icon will collapse or expand all level layer groups.

    

11. Show / hide in a row
    If you need to show / hide more than one layers, instead of clicking one by one, you can click on the visibility icon and drag in a row.

    

12. Hide other layers
    Hold down Opt + click on the visibility icon will hide all other layers.

    

13. Navigate layer blending mode
    Opt + Shift + "-" or "+" key allows you to navigate through the blending mode dropdown.

    

14. Set specific blending mode
    Opt + Shift + C, N, M, S, D… allows to set layer to specific blending mode.
    For examples: 
    Normal = Opt + Shift + N
    Screen = Opt + Shift + S
    Multiply = Opt + Shift + M
    Color = Opt + Shift + C

    

15. Lock layer transparency
    Press forward slash ("/") to lock layer transparency.

    

16. Load Channel selection
    You probably know that Cmd + number keys (1, 2, 3) will activate the channels in sequent. Press Cmd + Opt + number keys will load the selection. For example, press Cmd + Opt + 4 will load Alpha channel 1.

    

17. Tool panels
    Press Tab to toggle tool panels.

    

18. Precise cursor
    Caps lock will display tool cursor in precise mode.

    

19. Navigate the tool list
    You can navigate through the tool list by pressing Shift + tool shorcut. For example: B = Brush tool, if you press Shift + B again, you will switch to Pencil tool.

    

20. Increase / decrease brush size
    With the Brush tool selected, you can increase / decrease the brush size by pressing [ or ] key (square bracket key). Press Shift + [ or ] will increase / decrease brush hardness.

    

21. Opacity
    You can set the layer opacity by pressing the number keys (ie. 1 = 10%, 2 = 20%…). When you have the brush tool selected, pressing the number keys will adjust the brush opacity.

    

22. Duplicate layer
    There are several shortcuts to duplicate layers. 
    1. You can hold down Cmd + Opt + drag to duplicate the active layer. 
    2. Cmd + Opt + arrow keys (Up, Down, Left, Right).
    3. Cmd + J will duplicate the active layer in exact position.
    4. Hold down Opt + drag within the Layers palette can also duplicate layers.

    

23. Copy visible and paste in a new layer
    Press Cmd + Opt + Shift + E will copy the visible layers and paste in a new layer.

    

24. Change workspace background
    By default Photoshop use grey for the workspace background color. You can change that by:
    1. select your favorite color
    2. choose the Paint Bucket tool
    3. Hold down Shift + click on the working area (outside the document area)

    

    Update: right-click on the workspace area to get a dropdown menu - allows you to set the background to black, grey, or a custom color (commented by Todd Patrick).

25. Fill background or foreground color
    Opt + Delete (Backspace) = fill the layer with foreground color.
    Cmd + Delete (Backspace) = fill the layer with background color

    

    Update: 
    Cmd + Shift + Delete (Backspace) = Fill non-transparent pixels with background color
    Opt + Shift + Delete (Backspace) = Fill non-transparent pixels with foreground color
    (commented by André Dion)

26. Switch between document windows
    Ctrl + Tab will switch between document windows.

    

27. Load layer transparent
    Cmd + click on the layer thumbnail will load its transparency.

    

28. Scale proportionally from center
    When you are using the Marquee tools or Free Transform, hold down Opt + Shift + drag will scale proportionally from the center.

    

29. Shortcut to Eyedropper
    If you have the Brush tool selected, hold down Opt key will quickly activate the Eyedropper tool. Hold down Opt + Shift will activate the Color Sampler Tool.

    

30. Finally…
    Finally, if you want to check or set your own custom shortcuts, press Cmd + Opt + Shift + K will bring up the Keyboard Shortcuts panel.

    

Additional from the comments

• In some dialog boxes, holding the Opt key will turn the “Cancel” button into a most useful “Reset”. (by Miguel Tavares)
• To stroke a path, first select the path, then change to the brush tool, select a brush, and type Enter or Return. This works with all of the brush-like tools (eraser, clone, blur, etc.). (by buddhistMonkey)
• To turn a path into a selection, type Command-Enter or Command-Return (doesn’t matter what tool is selected). If there is already a selection, then Command-Shift-Return will add your path’s shape to the selection, Command-Option-Return will subtract it, and Command-Option-Shift-Return will select the intersection. (by buddhistMonkey)
• If you are adding a “Drop Shadow” layer effect, and you have the Layer Style dialog open to the Drop Shadow settings, you can move the shadow around by clicking and dragging in the image. This also works with the “Inner Shadow” effect. If you hold down the Option key, you can also adjust the Gradient Overlay, Pattern Overlay, and Satin effects by clicking and dragging. (by buddhistMonkey)

Do you know more shortcuts?

Do you know more Photoshop shortcuts that are not listed in this article? Please post them in the comment form. Make sure they are "secret" (not documented in the Photoshop menus).