INDIAN FIRMS IN BW'S INFOTECH 100 
The Economic Times  The Pioneer 

Indian IT firms Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Cognizant and Satyam and telecom services company Bharti Televentures have stormed into the Infotech 100 list of BusinessWeek Magazine, a leading global business news magazine. 

Infosys, which has been ranked number 10 among the global infotech giants, won praises from the magazine for keeping its clients and investors happy. 

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is ranked number 12, followed by Bharti Tele-Ventures at no.19, Wipro at no.23, Cognizant Technology Solutions at no.32 and Satyam at no.85," Business Week said in its Infotech 100 list, released this morning. 

TCS was ranked among the 10 most profitable companies, seeing profits of over $500 million. Cognizant was ranked among the 10 best companies in shareholder return. 

Interestingly, top global firms Accenture and IBM are ranked at no.31 and no.44 respectively. America Movil, which pioneered pre-paid services to emerge as Latin America's top wireless operator, has been ranked no.1 in the list. 

Commenting on Infosys, the magazine said "thrilled investors" in India value Infosys, which was well on its way to cross two billion USD in revenue during this year, more than its rival TCS, which was two-fifths bigger in revenues. 

"Infosys' customers are happy too: 19 out of 20 customers come back to this Bangalore-based firm with repeat orders. Now the company is eyeing China. Of the 12,600 people it will hire this year, about 1,000 will be at its Shanghai offices," the magazine said. 

On TCS, BusinessWeek said that the company took a big step in 2004, referring to the company going public and raising $1.17 billion, which was India's largest initial public offering. 

However, a one-time $23.5 million charge on employee incentives kept profit growth of the company to 27.5 percent, behind its peers in a fast growing industry and leaving investors momentarily disappointed. 

It also said TCS, the market leader, was looking for forward growth in high value businesses such as technology consulting, software embedded in electronic chips and Radio Frequency Identification (RIFD).

On Cognizant, the magazine said: "As more companies farm out their business tasks to India, Cognizant keeps riding the outsourcing wave." But it said Cognizant gave a twist to the formula, which in turn gave it an edge in the increasingly crowded field. 

"Rather than setting up shop solely in India, Cognizant was one of the outsourcers to focus on building a US-based management team to develop closer relationship with customers. And about 87 percent of its sales come from customers in North America, most of which are large corporations that want to cut their technology costs like J P Morgan Chase and United Healthcare," it said.