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Oct 15, 2005

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Saying YES to SMEs!

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Dear Friends,

YES BANK is a new age private sector bank with a focus on the
"Emerging Corporates" and the SME segment. The Bank has a dedicated
focus on the IT / ITES sectors. Excepts from an interview with Mr.
Rana Kapoor, Managing Director and CEO of YES BANK.

Q: Could you elaborate on YES BANK's strategy of knowledge banking?

A: We believe that certain knowledge sectors like IT and IT Enabled
Services, Lifesciences & Biotechnology and Food & Agri businesses
need dedicated focus and in-depth understanding to provide value
added credit and advisory solutions to clients. We have therefore
dedicated teams with the relevant industry and financial background
specializing in these sectors.

Further, a key focus area for us is the mid cap emerging market
segment as we believe these companies would require superior
financial and advisory services to support their expeditious growth
going forward.

Q: How would this strategy be of relevance to the Indian IT / ITES
sectors?

A: The IT Services sector is also characterized by many small to
medium size players, some of whom have developed specialized
product / service capabilities by focusing on niche expertise
areas - either looking at specific verticals or developing
competencies in certain applications / technologies. Smaller
companies have also strategised by focusing on a few customers /
geographies and developing preferred relationship status with key
outsourcers / services users.

While IT Services as a sector is not capital intensive, several
factors are making it imperative for companies to look at increased
investments and more effective utilization of financial resources.
Today, developing a critical scale of operations has become
essential for survival and growth. These factors include
consolidation of vendors by large outsourcers, preference for a
one-stop-shop service provider, demonstrable ability to scale up
processes as per client requirements, requisite financial strength,
high touch service standards etc. Also, one is witnessing an
increasing need for providing risk mitigation to end users from a
business continuity perspective thus requiring geographic diversity
in delivery capabilities, adequate service levels demanding a
certain minimum level of bench requirements, building delivery
capacities ahead of market requirements etc. Further, the industry
is also moving from a largely "Time & Material contracts" business
to fixed price contracts business with payments earned on achieving
relevant milestones.

These factors have resulted in companies looking for appropriate
financial support through plain vanilla and structured financial
solutions to supplement short term and long term financing needs.
>From a credit perspective, given that the IT Services business is
not asset intensive and most of the financial resources are
required for hardware, software licenses, training people and
business development & travel expenses, the conventional banking
mind set of asset collateral is not relevant. This makes it
imperative for lenders to understand and recognize the business
imperatives and conduct a pre-dominantly cash flow based credit
analysis. Further, there is a need to structure innovative
"receivables" financing for providing competitive funding for
working capital needs.

Given YES BANK's knowledge based approach with a focus on this
sector, we have developed such expertise internally. This would
therefore assist quality and high potential mid cap companies to
look at financial and advisory assistance from YES BANK.

To read the entire interview, go to:
http://www.nasscom.org/artdisplay.asp?Art_id=4260

Ciao!

Maj (Dr) Amit Chatterjee, SM
Strategist / Founder ~ mailto:amit@...
MT India ~ www.mtindia.org
"The Community of MT Professionals"
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****************

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NEWS AND VIEWS :
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1) MedQuist Moving to Centralized, National Service Delivery Model

MedQuist Inc. announced that management, in accordance with
direction received from the company's board of directors, adopted a
plan on October 6, 2005 to centralize and streamline the company's
organizational and operational structure to better serve its
customers. The plan is expected to improve operating performance
and increase customer satisfaction.

The move toward a new structure and delivery model will be
supported by the following actions:

-- MedQuist will shift resources to a single national service
delivery and support organization for all of the company's services
and products, eliminating local service centers. This new centrally
managed structure will enhance workflow management, with the result
being dramatically improved levels of service and quality for our
customers. The company expects this transition to result in the
consolidation of approximately forty facilities over the next
twelve months.

-- In conjunction with the shift to centralized customer service
delivery, the company's national service delivery and support
organization will, in the fourth quarter of this year, begin to
implement its Qtinuum of Care initiative. The Qtinuum of Care
initiative is focused specifically on driving increased levels of
customer satisfaction through a new centralized and integrated
customer service and support model.

-- To drive greater customer focus, the company's product
management group will be moving under the direction of the Chief
Technology Officer. Additionally, new products in the area of voice
capture, speech recognition and on-premise transcription solutions
will be introduced within the next twelve months.

-- The company's Sales and Marketing organizations will be
combined, which will improve communication between MedQuist's
direct sales group and its marketing support organization. As a
result of this combination, the Senior Vice President - Marketing
and Business Development and the Senior Vice President - Sales have
separated from the company. MedQuist is currently engaged in the
process of selecting the combined organization's leadership.

The company anticipates that all of the foregoing actions will be
complete by the end of the third quarter of 2006, and that it will
record restructuring charges in the range of $6.5 million to $8.5
million pre-tax, largely representing facility exit costs and
employee severance payments. As a result of the plan, the company
also expects to realize annualized savings of approximately $18.5
million.

http://www.genengnews.com/news/bnitem.aspx?name=1075066XSL_NEWSML_TO_NEWSML_WEB.\
xml

2) Council to vote on $1.16M request by CDOD

A request from the Carlsbad Department of Development for $1.16
million of Waste Isolation Pilot Plant acceleration funding is up
for approval by the Carlsbad City Council at 6 p.m. tonight in the
Municipal Building. The request includes $156,000 for the
renovation of a building at 803 N. Eighth St., which will be leased
by the CDOD to DTS America Inc., a medical transcription business
seeking to locate in Carlsbad. The company has said it would employ
about 200 people, but will first train the workers locally at the
Eighth Street address.

In a letter to City Administrator Jon Tully, CDOD Executive
Director Robert Detweiler states, "DTS America Inc. has been
aggressively recruited by the CDOD due to the high volume of jobs
the company is anticipated to produce as well as the valuable
training the company can offer to the Carlsbad workforce."

Detweiler's proposal to the city indicates that the city needs to
create new jobs to counter the impending closure of WIPP within 10
to 15 years, but he also states that the infrastructure
improvements will also help CDOD to recruit other companies to
Carlsbad. The jobs that DTS America Inc. will offer will target
low-to-modest income hiring while providing training and national
certification in the field of medical transcription, Detweiler
states.

http://www.currentargus.com/artman/publish/article_15170.shtml

3) Grandpa goes to the call centre in Rajasthan

Jaipur: Don't be surprised to find your grandfather taking his
afternoon snooze only to dress up and leave for work at 6pm. He
could be heading for a call centre. That seems to be the new trend
at call centres in Rajasthan - they are no longer the exclusive
bastion of youths.

In all, over six big and small call centres and medical
transcription centres are operational in Jaipur, employing around
2,000 people. And at least 20-25 per cent of the employees are
above 35 years of age. Some are as old as 65.

The policy that call centres in the city are following now is to
take anybody who can speak English fluently. One of the major
reasons for this trend is the need to work even after retirement.

"After retirement I shifted to Jaipur where my son is posted. Here
I have nothing to do, so I have taken up a part-time job at the
call centre that starts at 8pm," said a 62-year-old who is working
at a call centre but did not want to be identified by name.

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=\
India&month=October2005&file=World_News200510174338.xml

4) SoftMed Advances Internet Enabled Transcription Technology

Completes Integration of Internet Enabled Typing and Editing
Technology for Advanced Computer Aided Medical Transcription
(CA-MT)

SoftMed Systems, Inc., announced it has successfully deployed its
speech-enabled platform that includes patent-pending technologies.
This integrated technology provides auto formatting and intelligent
context interpretation of speech recognized output that boosts
productivity of computer aided medical transcription and provides
higher quality documentation.

"This integrated typing and editing technology further enhances
SoftMed's leading transcription, dictation and speech recognition
systems," said Don Segal, CEO of SoftMed Systems. "Our advanced
solutions are flexible and leverage existing workflow to enable
increased productivity that results in cost savings for healthcare
facilities."

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051017/dcm015.html?.v=23

5) Where fun is serious business...

One of the largest medical transcription companies in the country,
Spheris India Pvt. Ltd., places a premium on "fun at the workplace"
to make employees feel at home.

"We want people to de-stress themselves at work," said Suresh Nair,
Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Spheris India Pvt.
Ltd. "They need to have fun at work, right in the company.
Employees are banned from calling anyone `Sir' and should address
others only by their first names."

"If you don't break the monotony," added Surya V. Ciryam, Vice
President (Human Resources), "productivity will come down. Our
primary goal is to make the person happy. Many might not have a
happy home; so let them be happy at least at work."

Ciryam said that the aim was to avoid behaving like race drivers
who kept their eyes only on the road and avoided looking elsewhere.
"We want to be rally drivers, go on happy journeys and look around
a little, without stopping. Diversion enhances alertness, so we
consistently break the monotony."

http://www.hindu.com/2005/10/10/stories/2005101012390100.htm

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Thank you for your interest in MT India!

The MTIndia Team
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