Media & Insights

On 14th September, the Hangzhou government delegation and business mission which are leaded by the deputy mayor Tong Guili were invited to attend the Gartner Outsourcing Summit which is held at Orlando of USA and on the summit, they held the “Hangzhou Service Outsourcing Cooperation Symposium”.Since 2007 when the China outsourcing enterprises entered this summit, Hangzhou is the first city which sends the local government delegation attend summit and independently holds the symposium during Gartner Outsourcing Summit.
Hangzhou Service Outsourcing Cooperation Symposium has aroused the concerns from international and domestic summit participation enterprises. The 37 foreign service outsourcing enterprises such as Microsoft?BT Global?Allianz Life?and Sun Trust as well as the domestic service outsourcing leading enterpises such as China Software International, Beyond Technology, IsoftStone and HiSoft and the service outsourcing enterpises at Hangzhou such as Wansong of Zhejiang University, State Street (Zhejiang), Huaxin Design, Hang Seng Electronic, Dongchi Technology and Lingchuan Software entered the symposium.

From: www.hangzhou.com.cn

Insigma is dedicated tomaximizing ROI for its partners

By Stefan Hammond

According to Ryan Jones, international business development manager for Hangzhou-based Insigma Technology, his firm’s close relationship with Zhejiang University is a major strength.

Insigma was founded in 2001 with a strong focus on IT development due to our relationship with Zhejiang University,” said Jones. “We are a top-ten player in the domestic and offices in China, in both the private and public sectors, with particular strength in telecom, electricity, transportation, and other tech services.

As a result, we can leverage our channels with these major companies and help our international clients access them.

“Early on, we focused on developing a strong presence in the Japanese financial market,” said Jones, “and totally 60% of our business is from Japan. We’ve worked closely with their stock exchange and top-tier Japanese institutes.”

US/China Synergy

“One of our favorite’s milestones is with US-based financial services holding company State Street Corp,” said Jones, “In 2001 they set up a vibrant, growing research center at Zhejiang University. To keep the students as the graduated, we established a company called Universe soft, and then sold it to State Street as State Street’s captive offshore IT resource. Then together we built a JV-called Hengtian-which specializes in financial services outsourcing.”

“Our signature project with State Street-a reengineering project of their Lattice trading system-has been highlighted for its efficiency and customer satisfaction,” said Jones. “The original trading platform (buggy and crash-prone) was handed off to Insigma. After we were finished with it, it ran 400% faster and could handle 600% more transactions-at 25% the cost of doing it in-house.”

“We’ve also established strategic investments with companies like Hitachi systems and Fuji electronics. Recently we acquired a JV company of Microsoft, called Wicresoft, making Insigma Microsoft’s biggest outsourcing vendor in Asia-Pacific.”

Expansion

Jones explained that recently, Insigma has expanded to international markets along with organic growth. “We established a branch in Tokyo,” he said, “and last year we opened our first US branch in NYC. And Hengtian just opened its first US office in Q209.”

Jones said his firm’s mission statement helps direct their growth: they plan to be a leading IT consulting service provider in China and help their clients to maximize ROI. “As we continue to expand throughout Asia, Hong Kong is the most logical place for us to be,” he said. “It’s a gateway and stepping stone into China and Southeast Asia as a whole. So this is where we want to be.”

Hong Kong challenges

The Insigma manager pointed to challenges that “need to be addressed as we continue our plans here in Hong Kong-for example, many clients needing to scale up have very specific needs with specialized domain knowledge.”

“In this situation we leverage our relationship with Zhejiang University-we have a unique collaboration model that provides us access to their curriculum of domain knowledge and technical and soft skill training. At the university we can quickly train and prepare employees to handle clients’ specific needs as soon as possible-this has already been working for some of our major clients, like Cisco, for whom we deliver and service over 20% of all products in China.”

“Our marketing channels, our domain knowledge, and human resources separate us from the pack, and we’re confident we’ll overcome any challenges that come our way,” concluded Jones.

This article was published in Computer World, Sep10, 2009, http://www.cw.com.hk/

SOURCE: PR Newswire, Reuters, Boston.com, Business Journal, Business Weekly, New York Business Journal, San Francisco Business Times, IT Industry Today, IT BusinessNet.com etc.

In early July, Hengtian was interviewed for a second time by China Central Television (CCTV), the predominant television broadcaster in China, during the annual China Sourcing Summit Conference. During the interview, Hengtian’s Vice President Mr. Shi Wei explained how his own self-development has been impacted by his work with Hengtian and spoke about various trends that he expects to come out of the outsourcing industry. The interview was aired on CCTV’s Financial Channel on July 18 as part of their story on the growth of China’s outsourcing industry.

In mid-July, China Central Television’s Financial Channel ran a five-part series over five days to discuss the current Chinese economy, starting with the general worry about the apparent slowdown of GDP growth. Experts, industry leaders and officials were interviewed as part of the series.

One portion was devoted to the topic of China’s outsourcing industry, a bright spot in the economy. Featured was the ChinaSourcing Summit held from July 3rd to the 5th in Hangzhou, China, followed by an interview on the premises of Hengtian, a company with over 50 clients in five English-speaking countries as well as in China. Hengtian, a pioneering offshore software outsourcing company that’s part of Insigma Technology, is ranked as a Global Outsourcing 100 Company by IAOP (International Association of Outsourcing Professionals).

CCTV boasts a network of 22 channels broadcasting different programs and is accessible to more than 1 billion viewers. The organization is considered one of the “big three” media outlets in China, along with the People’s Daily and Xinhua.

This marks the second time that Hengtian has been interviewed by CCTV. In 2007, Hengtian’s ingenuous “co-coursing” cooperating model was spotlighted by CCTV prior to its launch. Since then, Hengtian has developed into a professional IT services provider with over 1,000 employees. It has experienced tremendous development in both technology and business and has plunged into active R&D ventures in up-and-coming fields such as big data, cloud computing, and mobile applications.

Hengtian is a technology services company in Hangzhou, China created in 2004 as an alliance among State Street Corporation, Insigma Technology (a Global Outsourcing 100 Company), and Zhejiang University. Hengtian is ISO 27001 certified and provides offshore and onshore technology development, research, and consulting services. Hengtian builds long-term, trusted relationships around the world by making our clients successful.

Reuters, Shanghai, March 9th — Insigma Technology Co., Ltd ( 600797 .SS) , Chinese software corporation, announced on China Securities Journal that it has established a strategic collaborative partnership with Microsoft Corp. ( MSFT.O) and that details about Microsoft’s planned capital investment in Insigma would be discussed later.

According to the announcement, Insigma Technology and Microsoft will launch collaborations in fields including IT application solutions, products, technology cooperations, software outsourcing and corporate level agreement.  The two companies will jointly use Microsoft technologies, such as .NET Platform, to develop industry leading IT application solutions.

Based on this cooperation, Insigma Technology would become the software outsourcing services provider for Microsoft and Microsoft would help Insigma to enhance its execution capability in the software outsourcing field.

The announcement also mentioned that the details about Microsoft’s planned capital investment in Insigma would be discussed further? and the investment is expected to be completed by the end of 2008.

This cooperation is helpful for Insigma to enhance its capability and to develop into China’s first-class IT solutions and software outsourcing services provider. Microsoft’s partnership eco-system will also be further strengthened with the participation of Insigma Technology.

(Reuters)

After cooperating with China Digital, Shandong wave, ChinaSoft and Powerise, Microsoft settles on Insigma Technology Corp. for partnership.

Insigma Technology Corp.( 600797.SH ) announced a global strategic partnership with Microsoft ( China ) on March 8, 2007. According to Li Hui, Assistant to President of Insigma Technology, collaboration with Microsoft consists of four fields including intellectual training, technology collaboration, programs based on .NET platform and software outsourcing. Li Hui also said that a 10-member coordination team has been specifically established to work on the collaboration between the two parties.

Microsoft’s Strategy

By cooperating with China Digital, Shandong wave, ChinaSoft and Powerise, Microsoft trys to fall back on its partners capable of getting bulk orders from local governments and special clients, while the company itself is also expected to share more technological supports and stages with those Chinese ventures.

Both parties would jointly make a plan of market projection and execution strategy. Microsoft would provide Insigma Technology’s software architects, developers, solution program sales, team support etc with various trainings, and support Insigma Technology’s application design and construction development based on the .NET platform. Furthermore, software service and outsourcing business of Insigma Technology would be assisted by Microsoft.

According to Deming Hong, global partnership strategy director of Microsoft China, not only technology trainings but also sales and management methods trainings would be available to Insigma, which would be very favorable for developing Insigma’s capability in R&D and business negotiation.

Hui Li also mentioned that some basic training would be in Microsoft for Insigma’s employees, while teaching staff from Microsoft would be sent to Insigma for some special training programs.

Cooperation in 3G technology would be another highlight based on Microsoft’s .Net platform. The increasing demand for 3G technology definitely provides IT solution programs a much larger market currently. And depending on Microsoft’s .Net platform and R&D capability, Insigma would strength itself in developing and applying software technology.  Also more market share is expected for Insigma.

To Microsoft, Insigma’s service capability in financial software, E-government, energy, environment protection is worth relying on.

Insigma Technology’s Blueprint

In fact, the software outsourcing orders from Microsoft are the visible benefit to Insigma Technology.

In the year of 2002, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballner went to China and signed a contract worth 6.2 billion RMB with China development and reform committee. The contract consists of an overall investment terms such as hardware manufacture,software outsouricing and technology training. According to Deming Hong, the Microsoft orders would be priorly given to outstanding software outsoucing players like Insigma Technology.

Currently, 60% of outsourcing businesss in Insigma comes from North America market while 40% is in Japanese market, which indicates a great increase of software outsourcing in North America for Insigma.  The cooperation with Microsoft is indeed helpful for Insigma to expand its business in US market, according to Hui Li.  And he also points out that, not including employees in Comtech, there are around 1200 employees in Insigma engage in the software oursouring towards European and American market, and in 3 years, the number will outpace 2500.

Zhaohui Xia, a specialist in Huatai Security Corp., represents that in 3 years, Insigma’s outsoucing revenue from Europe and America will recepectively reach US$30 million, US$ 50million and US$80 million, even in 2008, the net profit is expected to outpace US$100 million.

Under the firm support from Microsoft, Insigma Technology has taken a much closer step to its “International Software Factory” dream, according to Chun Chen, Chairman of Insigma Technology.

(21st Century Business Herald)

November 5th, 2007, Hangzhou. According to the CTO of State Street Corp., State Street is planning to expand cooperation with Insigma to widen its software outsourcing capabilities. State Street intends to employ more talents in SSTZ (State Street Technology Zhejiang), a subsidiary of State Street, located in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province, China.  The employee number is expected to increase from 600 to 5000 in the coming three to five years.

(Zhejiang Daily, Yuan Xu)

Insigma Technology Corp. has been speeding up construction of the nearly complete Insigma Software Outsourcing Industry Park, an integrative area for outsourcing industries, and by this summer a group of corporations are expected to move into the park.  According to the Assistant to the President of Insigma Technology, Mr. Hui Li, Insigma Park is built as a core platform based in Hangzhou for international outsourcing business.  Insigma Technology is also expected to be the biggest software outsourcing provider of China to Microsoft Corp.

Insigma Software Outsourcing Industry Park is among the top 10 supported industrial zones in Hangzhou.  In the coming three years, the Hangzhou government intends to speed up construction of two state-level service outsourcing model zones, one as the High-tech Technology Industry Development Zone (Binjiang District), and the other as the Economic and Technological Development Zone.  In addition, the government also plans to establish 10 province-level or city-level service outsourcing zones,? qualifications of which include annual revenue surpassing $US 100 million, an employee count of over 5,000, and at least five industrial zones owing sales revenue of over $US 20 million within five years.  It is the action and plan to establish a Hangzhou brand, building Hangzhou city as a state-level service outsourcing base.

The developing route for service outsourcing indicates that Hangzhou is making efforts on persistent and significant adjustment of its high-tech industry, by speeding up expansion of Development Zone construction, from two model sites, the High-tech Technology Industry Development Zone (Binjiang District) and the Economic and Technological Development Zone, to a coverage of 13 counties.  Development and expansion of high-tech industry in Hangzhou is considered at its bloom.

A project program named “Paradise Silicon Valley” in Golden Triangle is expected to be released soon.  Golden Triangle refers to the High-tech Industry Development Zone, the Economic and Technological Development Zone, Westlake District, and Yuhang District’s Cangqian town.  Westlake District and Cangqian town, as the new added zones for the Golden Triangle development project, while further depending on resources from Zhejiang University and China Academy of Art, are expected to focus on industries covering information network, animation cartoon, culture creativity and knowledge-oriented service.

According to the “Software Revenue Top 100 Corporations 2007” released by the Ministry of Information Industry of China, software corporations in Hangzhou were big winners again.  Insigma Technology Corp., as one of the leading IT service company in Hangzhou, was ranked the top 5 of the list.  The company was also consecutively ranked the top 2 in “China offshore software outsourcing ranking list”.

Relying on service outsourcing for these years, Insigma Technology Corp. has been in a leading position among IT outsourcing providers in China. Not like high- pollution, high-consumption and low add-value industries, service outsourcing is an environment-friendly, knowledge-intensive, and globally oriented industry expected to undergo tremendous growth in the next decade.  Its development will improve the labor force quality of China, drive Chinese enterpriese’ transition from labor- intensive to knowledge-intensive, and lead the modern service industry boom in China.

In 2007 Insigma Technology Corp. has been approaching its goal of building an International Software Factory.

Highlight Review of 2007

? Microsoft (China) Co., Ltd. and Insigma Technology signed a global strategic collaboration memorandum in Hangzhou on March 8, 2007.

? The 2007 Mobile Innovation Summit Forum, held in Hangzhou, and was jointly sponsored by Insigma Technology Corp., China Mobile and Microsoft on March 17, 2007.

? Insigma Technology Corp. and Zhejiang University co-established Insigma Technology Financial Information Center. The signing ceremony was held on April 17, 2007.

? “…Insigma Technology Corp. is partnering with Microsoft Corp., and it has already owned an R&D group of 400-plus software engineers responsible for US market development, and the company has made its revnue strike twice …”. ——  From CCTV News, August 26, 2007, about the success story of Insigma Technology’s software outsourcing.

? International Conference on Information Technology for Financial Services 2007(ICITFS) was held in Hangzhou, China, from Nov.5th to Nov.7th, joining the efforts of the Hangzhou Municipal Government, Zhejiang University, Insigma Hengtian and State Street Technology Zhejiang (SSTZ).

(Hangzhou Daily)

On June 1st, 2008, the 2008 China (Yantai Zhifu) services outsourcing summit- 2007 China’s software exports (outsourcing) list conference was held in Yantai’s Dongshan International Conference Hall. Participants included government executives, experts, corporate executives and representatives from across the country in order to engage in-depth China’s software outsourcing cooperation.

The event was sponsored by the China Software Industry Association, Shandong Provincial Information Industry Office, Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Office, Science and Technology Office, and the People’s Government of Yantai City, and it was undertaken by the People’s Government of Yantai Zhifu, the Information Industry Council of Yantai City, and China’s Software and Services Outsourcing Net. The award ceremony and symposium invited China’s leading software ministries and corporations, including Tata (China), Microsoft (China), Fujitsu, iSoftStone, Neusoft, Founder, and other senior managers to publish in-depth development analyses of China’s software outsourcing industry, with multi – cooperation as the main theme. The Yantai government also organized related enterprises in their image display, providing business opportunities for related enterprises and promoting rapid development of local enterprises in this field.

In 2007 China’s software exports (outsourcing) ranking list, Shenyang Neusoft Software Co., Ltd., Insigma Technology Corp., Dalian Hi-Think Computer Technology Co., Ltd., Hisoft (International) Group, and other enterprises earned 2007 China’s Top 25 Export Software Enterprises. And Insigma Technology Corp. ranked in the top two of the list for the third consecutive year.

According to the statistics, China’s software exports (outsourcing) ranking list has become the sole authoritative source relating to software exports and outsourcing. This event has begun to greatly attract purchasers abroad. The data is also recorded in the “Yearbook of China’s Software Industry” and adopted by related government ministries.

[Editor’s notes]
“The 9th International Conference on Information Technology for Financial Services” (ICITFS 2009), jointly hosted by People’s Municipal Government of Hangzhou, Zhejiang University, State Street Corporation and Insigma, ceremoniously opened at 9 o’clock AM on October 19th, 2009, at Zhejiang University. ICITFS 2009 is a distinguished international conference in the background of economic recovery trends. Professors and scholars from Zhejiang University, technical and business experts from State Street Corporation, leading international and China domestic financial firms and IT companies all came together to host seminars, workshops and discussions on the latest financial innovations, information technologies, and to exchange ideas on how the latest information technologies could contribute to the world’s financial industry.
Economic rebounds, how about the development of the financial information service industry? Bo ZHOU, the CEO of Insigma Hengtian Software Co., Ltd, a domestic financial service American outsourcing business leader, specifically illustrated the development and trend of financial services outsourcing in the current economic climate.

In financial crisis, government is a strong supporter for financial services outsourcing enterprises

As a service outsourcing company based city in China, Hangzhou not only has a strong industrial base, developed urban economy, and good investment environment, but also effective government support for the service outsourcing industry. Hangzhou Mayor Qi CAI said, “Hangzhou will use its own obvious advantages in software information and financial services industry to focus on the financial services outsourcing, to build up a delivery centers for international financial services outsourcing.” In addition to many well-known local service outsourcing enterprises such as Insigma, Alibaba, and Hundsun, Hangzhou has also attracted State Street, Microsoft, Intel and some other international companies to set up outsourcing centers, in what is regarded as “the most suitable city for developing high-end services outsourcing industry in China” by the chief analysts of Gartner, a famous research group based in the U.S.

Over the past year, despite the economic turbulence, Zhejiang Province and Hangzhou government has paid attention to and given strong support to financial services outsourcing. Guili TONG, the vice mayor of Hangzhou, has visited services various outsourcing companies several times in order to observe the situation of the outsourcing market and the difficulties they encountered, and to give her encouragement and support. In May 2009, the second International Outsourcing Business Development Annual Meeting (IOBD), organized by the Hangzhou Municipal Government and co-sponsored by Hangzhou Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau, has discussed business policies and cooperation opportunities for the integration of global enterprises. ICITFS 2009 provides a perfect communication platform for financial services outsourcing enterprises in Hangzhou as well.

With the government’s strong support, we have always been optimistic about the bright future of the financial services outsourcing industry. In the face of challenges in the marketplace and slowdown of business development, we insist on an open, strategic perspective and avoid taking short-sighted policies, and we also focus on technological innovation, enhancing staff technical and professional knowledge training, and standardizing project management and internal operations processes. Just in this period, we have obtained ISO 27001 and CMMI certification. In the meantime, we have further increased marketing investment, such as organizing a number of new marketing teams.

Financial services outsourcing industry to get warm again after a cold spell

The current international economy is slowly becoming more stable. The financial services outsourcing industry, compared with last year, has had remarkable improvement. There are two main reasons: firstly, a large number of projects that become stagnant during the grim period of last year have been restarted. Secondly, the economic crisis has brought changes in business models, mainly focusing on strict cost control, in order to search for new needs and opportunities in the market. These factors have been driving the financial services outsourcing business to improvement, showing signs of recovery in the industry.

Business model innovation to inspire new impetus

Nowadays, business model innovation is an important way to obtain competitive advantage for services outsourcing enterprises, whether in or out of crisis.

From launching to a certain size, if enterprises want to reach a certain height and get rid of their own limitations, business model innovation is a necessity for seeking long-term development. Co-sourcing, one successful model, focuses on the basis of mutual trust. Outsourcing service providers and customers share risk and cost and focus on project supervision and management, product management, and applications together. In co-sourcing, the outsourcing service team and client integrate their own expertise in technology and professional knowledge to achieve complementary advantages and generate economies of scale and multiplier effects as well, so that it can control costs more effectively, improve efficiency and achieve win-win situations.

In addition, Chinese service outsourcing industry, by virtue of geography, can operate nearly 24 hours every day with their western counterparts, thereby enhancing work efficiency.

It is worth mentioning that China itself is a huge market. We can use our own marketing channels to assist clients in developing businesses in China, thus providing customers with more value-added services. This emerging business model achieves a win-win outcome between outsourcer and client.

Hangzhou, located south of Yangtze River Delta and adjacent to the international financial center Shanghai, is one of the most developed financial services industry cities in China. According to “Hangzhou Service Outsourcing Industry Development Strategy and Planning”, at present, Hangzhou is sparing no effort to build up an international financial services outsourcing delivery center.

We believe that financial services outsourcing industry in Hangzhou will have a brighter future!

http://zj.people.com.cn/GB/channel15/200910/20/36327.html
October 19th, 2009