Rising wages prompt firm to pull out of India
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Image search firm Riya is to pull its research and engineering operations out of India to consolidate in the U.S. due toÂ rising wages in Bangalore.
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Slashed earnings estimate pulls down shares.
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Royal &amp; Sun Alliance, the UK&#39;s second biggest insurer, today incurred the wrath of unions by announcing plans to move more than 1,000 jobs to India.
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The DHL parcel delivery service said Thursday it was pulling its intercontinental hub - and thousands of jobs - out of Belgium because authorities refused to accept an increase in noisy night flights.
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Finding it tough to make a buck, some companies eye the exits.
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An estimated 800,000 government workers demanding higher pay and more benefits walked off the job Thursday in what union leaders called the biggest strike in South African history.
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One of the countryâs biggest insurance firms today announced plans to transfer more than 1,100 jobs to India over the next few years, sparking fears of a âcrisisâ in the UK.
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Shares on India's main stock exchange shoot to a record high on signs that a dispute at leading conglomerate Reliance is coming to an end.
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Stocks suffered their biggest loss since July after the government said labor costs climbed, reviving concern about rising interest rates.
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Anil Ambani resigns from the petrochemical unit of Indian giant Reliance, renewing rumours of a management feud with elder brother Mukesh.
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About 360 British jobs are axed by a Swiss agrochemical firm as part of a worldwide cost-cutting move.
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Staff at Sanmina in Lisburn, have been told the plant is shutting down and relocating.The US owned company, which makes computer cabinets, wants to move to Hungary in a bid to lower its wage bill.  (c) 2007 Belfast Telegraph. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning.
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The company has decided to leave the public markets.
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India had pulled about 3000 troops out of Kashmir in a planned withdrawal, officials said yesterday, as the peace process between New Delhi and Islamabad came under strain.
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Several initial public offerings have been withdrawn in India in recent weeks as once-resilient investors rethink their commitment to Indiaâs volatile stock markets.
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Shares in India's Tata Steel have plunged more than four percent after it raised an offer to buy Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus by nearly 10 percent.
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(InfoWorld) - Image search firm Riya is to pull its research and engineering operations out of India to consolidate in the U.S. due toÂ rising wages in Bangalore. The company, which is behind visual shopping Web siteÂ Like.comÂ and specializes in image recognition software, had maintained offices in both Bangalore and the U.S. despite the difficulties of being based in locations 12 time zones apart because low wages and a strong pool of talent in India meant the company still saw a significant return on investment. But in his company blog, Riya chief executive Munjal Shah, said: "Bangalore wages have just been growing like crazy. To give you an example, there is an employee of ours who took the first five years of his career to get from 1 percent to 10 percent of his equivalent U.S. counterpart. "He then jumped from 10 percent to 20 percent of his U.S. counterpart in the next 1 year. During his time with us (less than two years) he jumped to 55 percent of the U.S. wage. In the next few months we would have had to move him to 75 percent just to 'keep him at market.'" Shah added: "In general this wage inflation is really good for my employees and great for India." But the increase in Bangalore wages had "destroyed the ROI" that was the rationale for maintaining the otherwise difficult two-continent operation. The company has now moved to consolidate its engineering and research work at its California headquarters. In his blog Shah predicted that other firms with similar offshore operations would also face problems as wages rose. "I do believe that other startups in Bangalore will see the same issue in 12-24 months," he said. Shah noted that unlike Silicon Valley employees, staff in Bangalore did not value stock options highly, preferring a boost in cash wages. This, and the fact that Riya was seeking the most highly qualified staff in the area "increased our exposure to wage inflation", Shah said. The costs of having two offices so far apart was "significant", he said, with staff having to make late-night conference calls and then returning to work late the next day because of tiredness. "We were all travelling constantly. Development and communication moved slower due to the distance and teams. However, all of this was worth it so long as the ROI was there," he said. But loss of that return had prompted the U.S. consolidation. Riya would see a fall in headcount in a bid to keep overall payroll costs the same before and after the move, Shah said. "Because wages are still higher in the U.S. we couldn't bring everyone."