Belgium Govt. outsources VISA services

by | Nov 10, 2006 | Business

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, Friday, November 10, 2006 — (Business Wire India) — VFS (India) Private Limited, a trusted outsourcing partner to diplomatic missions worldwide has bagged the mandate to provide the administrative services required to facilitate travel & business Visa for Belgium.

The Belgium government has witnessed a quantum increase in the number of visitors from India to Belgium towards both leisure and business purposes. To simplify and facilitate speedier processing of visa for the people of India, the government of Belgium has appointed VFS, India as a specialist agency to manage the entire Visa application process. India is the first location in the world where such a facility encompassing a 360 degrees service would be made available. India is the natural choice owing to its high quality of human resources, advance technological developments and the strong historical trade relations shared between both countries.”

VFS, India will manage the Belgian visa application centre to help Visa applicants from the business, student and leisure traveling community through voice, e-mail and face-to-face communications. VFS will help in dissemination of information, pre-scrutiny of Visa applicants, database creation and scheduling of interviews. VFS is a leader in providing specialist business process outsourcing services targeted at diplomatic missions in managing the administrative tasks aimed at fulfilling the Visa application services. In the past five years since its inception, VFS has developed strong capability in Visa facilitation through continuous investments in trained human resources, proprietary software and cutting-edge technology.

Ready to Drink Coffee by Amul

by | Nov 2, 2006 | Business

Amul Kool Café is targeted at ‘Generation X’ who is in search of a healthy beverage which is tasty, trendy, and nutritious. Amul plans to launch in the near future Coffee Mocha, Coffee Sugar free and decaffeinated flavours.

With this launch, the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., Asia’s largest integrated dairy products manufacturing and marketing organization and India’s largest food company, further consolidates its position in the beverage market. The non-carbonated drink market has been showing a hefty double digit growth since the last couple of years. GCMMF is now a leading player in the Indian Dairy beverage market with over 90% market share in branded packaged dairy drinks segment.

In keeping with its goal of emerging as the single largest entity in the dairy beverage market, Amul introduced low calorie thirst quenching drinks, nutritious and tasty Amul Masti Buttermilk in addition to Amul Kool range of flavoured milk and also India’s first Sports and Energy drink Stamina. In keeping with this trend it has now launched Kool Café targeted towards the youth.

The Indian soft drink market is worth about Rs. 6000 crores per annum. The soft drink market can be broadly divided into two major segments – carbonated soft drink and non-carbonated soft drinks. The carbonated drinks account for 85% of the total soft drink market. However, the growth rate has been stagnant and in fact declining over the past few years. The non-carbonated drinks category includes special categories like fruit drinks, juices and dairy drinks, etc. With the changing lifestyles, the growth in non-carbonated drink category has been much higher than the carbonated category. There is an inherent need in the mind of the Indian consumer for a healthy drink. Amul Kool Café satisfies this need.

Amul to use Natural Vanilla in Ice-Creame

by | Sep 23, 2006 | Business

Anand, Gujarat, India, Friday, September 22, 2006 — (Business Wire India) — Amul, the market leader in ice-creams in the country, has launched the Vanilla Royale Ice-cream using pure natural vanilla extract. Amul is the first Indian brand to use natural vanilla in ice-cream. Pure natural vanilla is an extremely complex flavour from the fruit of an orchid called vanilla planifolia. The major flavour component of vanilla beans is natural vanillin which appears as a white crystal line material on well cured aged beans.

The Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., which markets the products of 2.9 million milk producers of Gujarat under the brand name Amul, has taken this initiative to help 1500 vanilla farmers of Kochi who are engaged in procuring and processing quality natural vanilla as per international standards. These vanilla farmers have joined together to form the Vanilla India Producers Co. Ltd., Ernakulam.

Amul’s Vanilla Royale is available in an attractive 500 ml paper cup priced at Rs. 45/- all over the country. It stays fresh for 12 months from the date of packaging when stored at minus 18 degree Celsius.

e-Filing Annual Returns Mandatory from Tomorrow

by | Sep 15, 2006 | Business

All electronic filings require Director Identification Number (DIN) to be furnished as part of the e-Forms. DIN is mandatory for all existing directors and those intending to be directors. One can apply online for DIN. Necessary information in this regard is available on Ministry’s website, www.mca.gov.in.

e-Forms are required to be signed digitally using a Digital Signature Certificate (DSC). It is illegal to use the DSC of any other person. Certifying Authorities (CA) have been granted license to issue DSC with a validity of one or two years under Section 24 of the Indian IT-Act 2000. One can procure Class 2 or 3 certificates from any of the certifying authorities such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), National Informatics Center (NIC), IDRBT Certifying Authority, SafeScrypt CA Services, Sify Communications Ltd., (n) Code Solutions CA, MTNL Trust Line and Customs & Central Excise.

Recognizing the problems associated with paper-based manual filing coupled with increased volumes of business, the Ministry of Company Affairs has adopted an alternative, more efficient system. This alternative approach is being implemented through the ‘MCA21’ – a major e-Governance initiative with a view to introduce efficiency and transparency in service delivery. It is an initiative to strengthen the regulatory framework and facilitate compliance of rules at minimum cost with convenience to the stakeholder. MCA21 provides for online availability of all of Ministry’s services which can be accessed anytime and anywhere. These services include name availability, name registration, company incorporation, various compliance services such as annual returns filing, various event based services like charge document registration etc. These services can be accessed online by logging onto www.mca.gov.in which is available in a 24X7 manner through the internet and also through various facilitation centers established by the Ministry. Using these, any service can be invoked online. Payment can be done electronically, status can be tracked online and communication with the Ministry can be done through email. This also provides for search of comprehensive company database including viewing of public documents online upon payment of necessary fees electronically.
(Source: PIB)

Wipro Named as Top BPO Providers

by | Sep 15, 2006 | Business

Wipro Technologies was also recently rated as the top Indian outsourcing firm in the Global Outsourcing 100 rankings conducted by IAOP. The list included some of the largest IT companies worldwide and Wipro Technologies has been ranked 7th and is the only Indian company in the top 10.

The Top BPO Providers for 2006 is a sub-list of The Global Outsourcing 100 that recognizes the worlds top BPO service providers globally. This recognition is based on applications received by companies, further evaluated by an independent panel of judges. The award is based on a rigorous evaluation process involving four key criteria that included size and growth, customer experience, depth and breadth of competencies, and management capabilities.

“Being selected to the Top BPO Providers list for 2006 is a tremendous achievement that speaks to Wipro Technologies position as one of the industry’s most valuable partners,” said Michael F. Corbett, Executive Director of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP). As the global Standard-setting organization and advocate for the outsourcing profession, IAOP is pleased to recognize Wipro technologies with this prestigious award.

Commenting on the award, T.K.Kurien, Chief Executive – BPO, Wipro Technologies said “The Top BPO provider award is a reaffirmation of Wipro’s leadership position in the BPO sector and towards our dedication to customers globally. Wipro BPO provides business process reengineering & integrates technology with BPO to deliver long term benefits to its customers.”

The key element of services delivery for Wipro is based on an integrated approach that provides increased value, involving a phased approach towards process standardization, process optimization and process re-engineering.

Wipro follows a Service Delivery Model, which is a robustly defined framework to manage the complete BPO process migration and transition management and has been developed based on the experience gained from migrating more than 400 remote business processes to India over the past ten years. This proven service transfer platform is designed to ensure process integrity and minimize inherent migration risks.

Wipro BPO with US $ 174 million contributed to around 10 % of global IT services revenue in the year 2005-2006.