HCL Technologies to buy Geometric Business

HCL Technologies has agreed to buy all of the business done by Mumbai based software firm Geometric Ltd, except a joint venture the latter has with Dassault Systems SA, in a share swap deal valued at $190 Million. The transaction will help HCL, the country fourth largest information technology firm, increase its business in the engineering services space.

Geometric accepted Noida based HCL Technologies offer of a share swap under which its shareholders will get 10 HCL shares for every 43 share they hold in Geometric. HCL will issue a total of 15.64 Million shares. HCL will get about 74% of Geometric total business and expects the transaction to be completed by the end of this year.

Geometric on its part, will merge into 3DPLM software solutions Ltd, its joint venture with Dassault Systems, thereby giving 100% ownership to the French Company. This will help HCL to scale up its offerings and win large deals from engineering companies. For promoters of Geometric, this marks the end of a three decade journey after Godrej set up Geometric in 1984 and incorporated it as an independent firm in 1994.

Upon completion of this merger, HCL Technologies will generate $1.34 Billion from engineering services and become the world’s third largest technology engineering outsourcing company. Geometric has not recorded any growth in revenue over the last two years despite the product engineering space growing at a health space, and for this reason most equity analysts questioned the rationale of the deal.

Askme acquires BestAtLowest.com

Askme.com, the online search, listings and deals portal of Getit Infomedia Pvt. Ltd, has acquired Online groceries start up BestAtLowest.com. With this acquisition, the e-commerce portal and its team of 25 people became a part of Askme. This will work on integrating BestAtLowest.com into askmegroceries.com which will be launched later this year.

Accelity BestAtLowest.com Online services Pvt. Ltd, which runs bestatlowest.com is a marketplace working in the hub and spoke model. It has tied up with retailers and supermarket stores to acquire food and groceries to supply to its hub, which are the delivered across locations. It offers a same day delivery service within 4-6 hours of consumers placing an order in Delhi and the National Capital Region.

This is an acqui-hire, where one acquire a company and get its talent on board to extend or build a new category. In March, Godrej Nature Basket had acquired Ekstop.com, an online groceries portal, and integrated its platform to augment its online delivery and web presence. The brand also offers same day delivery in the five cities it operates.

Online groceries which is not even a per cent of sales of the consumer packaged goods sector, is becoming a fast growing segment. The internet will influence one-third of the total sales in the consumer packaged goods sector in the next five years. Brick and mortar retail in India is expected to grow three times to $180 Billion in 2020 from $60 Billion in 2015. 

Dentsu Aegis acquires WATConsult

Dentsu Inc. is an International advertising and public relations company whose headquarters are located in the Dentsu Building in the Shiodome district of Minato, Tokyo. The Company origins as a media representative producing the first newspaper advertisements and the first television commercials in Japan. The company now offers a range of services, from traditional and creative marketing to specialty disciplines such as sports marketing, digital contents, PR, and a growing range of communication services.

Dentsu reached an agreement with the principal shareholder of Mumbai based WATConsult, a digital agency, to acquire a 90% stake in the company, which will ultimately be increased in steps to 100%. WATConsult will become part of Isobar, one of the Dentsu Group’s global network brands, and will be referred to as WATConsult linked by Isobar.

WATConsult, founded in 2007 as a Social Media agency, has developed into a digital agency offering services such as digital creative, digital media planning and buying, development of campaigns that utilize social and digital media, production of digital media applications and digital video, and online reputation management. Its clients include Godrej, Tata, Bajaj, Mahindra, SAP, and Nikon. WATConsult employs more than 160 people across the Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Kolkata and has annual revenue of nearly Rs. 30 Crore.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Dentsu Inc, the Dentsu India Group comprises three standalone full service-advertising agencies – Dentsu Communications, Dentsu Marcom, and Dentsu Creative Impact as well as Dentsu Media and Dentsu Digital. Tokyo based Dentsu Inc has a presence in 24 countries across five continents. In 2012, it acquired 51 percent stake in Mumbai based advertising agency Taproot India Communication Pvt Ltd for an undisclosed sum.

Mobile apps for Managing People

Companies across sectors are increasingly using mobile apps to carry out resources related tasks such as recruitment and talent management, and cut the time that goes into key processes including collecting and filling data, and waiting for approvals. Let us look at some apps of some companies and their use.

TCS NextStep is an app used by TCS and is in use since 2012. Candidates can register for a job from this app and track the status of the job. This app gives update on the interview location and Google maps synchronize it. Candidates can view and save their offer letter with the help of app., TCS is using the app as its main hiring tool. By this app, TCS hiring process has become paperless. Companies have seen a 20-30% increase in the adoption of application.

Zoho People is an app developed by Zoho Corporation Pvt. Ltd and is in use since November 2013. Zoho is Chennai based CRM software Provider Company. Zoho People allows people to mark their attendance. Instead of swiping card to enter office, the app lets employees to log in the check in and checkout times. Employees find this useful to check in to work, especially when they work from client locations and it helps keep a check on their activity. The company will include a leave request feature through which employee can apply for leave and their managers can accept it over mobile device.

SuccessFactors is an app used by Godrej Industries Ltd since December 2013. The app has features such as job requisition approvals, interview feedback, offer approvals, and performance evaluations and lists the number of tasks pending against the feature, making it a ready reckoned for executives. The user interface of this app is designed in such a way that it lays out all necessary details on a single page. The interview feedback feature allows senior executives to view the overall rating given to a candidate, view the resume, and even see if the potential hire fits the budget of the organization. This leads to more efficiency in the recruitment process.

Workday is an app used by Philips India Ltd since April 2014. This app let executives enter objectives of employees and track them on a real time basis. They also help executives log in feedback given on projects on a real time basis. It also generates manpower requests across the organization, and is looking to upgrade it to performance and talent management functions over the next few months.

With continuous change in technology, companies are now shifting their focus on the use of smartphone for all their work. Internet is also playing a major role in executing all processes. This is also reducing use of paper work in the companies and connectivity is more in using mobile apps. It also requires less number of employees in executing processes and it is easy to sort data out of it.