glendonTodd Capital LLC, a private equity firm that focuses on investments in business services companies and investments in real estate, announces the acquisition of Toutatis Inc. by glendonTodd Capital LLC and Performa Partners.

Based in São Paulo, Brazil, Toutatis Inc. is a full service business process outsourcing (BPO) provider in Latin America and offers a wide variety of BPO solutions in human resource outsourcing, finance and accounting outsourcing and procurement outsourcing. The firm has offices in ten countries throughout Central and South America, including: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, and Uruguay, giving it the ability to serve international clients with operations throughout the region. The company’s unique ability to deliver BPO services across Latin America from its shared service center in Uberlândia offers flexible and cost-efficient solutions by providing user-friendly, accurate, seamless execution.

Todd Furniss, Managing Partner of glendonTodd Capital explains, “We focus on those industries and companies located in favorable macro-economic environments where we can help create disproportionate value, and we think that Brazil has a very bright economic picture for at least the next five years. Toutatis has a robust services platform and customer base in key markets throughout Latin America that we can leverage for growth. Together with Marcelo Franca, and our great operating partners at Performa, we have the ability to execute on our vision and realize significant stakeholder value creation.”

Marcelo Franca, CEO of Toutatis stated, “Our relationship with glendonTodd, allows us to take advantage of world class operational insights and financial execution capabilities to propel Toutatis onto the global stage.”

The company’s unique value proposition and delivery capability, reinforced by glendonTodd’s and Performa’s strategic capital and operational insights, position Toutatis well for growth and shareholder value creation.

Capgemini, one of the largest multinational IT companies in the world with presence in 40 countries and more than 50 years of experience, will open a subsidiary in Bogotá to offer its services to local clients and subsequently to clients based in other Latin American countries while using Colombia as its regional base of operations.

“Colombia is a key country in our regional expansion strategy; it’s a country experiencing strong growth that has a very capable workforce and a very competitive cost structure. For that reason we decided to open offices here,” said Peter Kroll, Senior Vice President of Capegemini North Latam.

Proexport Colombia facilitated Capgemini’s landing in Colombia; the company will generate 400 jobs in the next two years. “’We look for computer scientists that have graduated from Colombian universities and we train them to provide Capegemini services to national clients and to other clients in the region,” explained Kroll.

“More and more companies from all sectors are requiring IT services, it is a growth industry in Colombia. According to the figures of the Superintendencia de Sociedades y el Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones, the principle companies in the sector earned around $550 million USD in revenue during 2011,” declared Maria Claudia Lacouture, president of Proexport.

The announcement happened at the 2012 ANDI Outsource Services conference where Kroll emphasized the potential of Colombia as an export platform to the countries that it has free trade agreements with and the opportunity to enter new markets such as the United States.

Capegemini has 108,000 employees worldwide and already has subsidiaries in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Guatemala and Chile. They specialize in maintenance of infrastructure and process applications, the implementation of business intelligence systems and ERP among other services.

Proexport, the entity in charge of attracting foreign investment to Colombia, offers services to interested investors such as tailored information in the form of contacts in the public and private sectors, accompaniment and scheduling related to country visits, and continued support to foreign investors that choose Colombia.

PRONicaragua stood out with the best results among all investment promotion agencies in the world in the 2012 Global Investment Promotion Benchmarking, recently published by the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).

Among the 189 institutions evaluated, PRONicaragua was the only institution to achieve a rating of “best practice,” the highest distinction awarded by the study in each of the three evaluations implemented. This edition marks the first time in history that a non-member country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) receives such recognition.

Robert Whyte, the World Bank’s Project Manager for the GIPB 2012, mentioned that with FDI levels only slowly recovering post-crisis, it is more important than ever for government agencies to be highly responsive to the needs of potential investors as they search for new investment locations, adding that “PRONicaragua, as the world’s top performer in the World Bank Group’s GIPB 2012 report, has clearly taken this message to heart.”

The GIPB report examines the investment attraction activities of investment promotion agencies (IPAs), which refer to investment facilitation, including the ability to provide investors with detailed, accurate, timely and necessary information to successfully establish a business in the country of interest.

“As lead contractor for the World Bank’s GIPB 2012 survey of Investment Promotion Agencies in 189 countries, OCO Global is pleased to endorse PRONicaragua as the world’s top performer. PRONicaragua provides an example to IPAs across the world of best practice in investor facilitation,” commented Joe Phillips, Managing Consultant of OCO Global.

Furthermore, General Alvaro Baltodano, Presidential Delegate for Investments, applauded the successful coordination between the government, private sector and workers, leading to worldwide recognitions such as the one granted by the GIPB report, stressing that this is “an achievement of Nicaraguans that demonstrates there is a national consensus on the importance of investments for the country, which generates jobs and stimulates the national economy.”

In the 2009 edition of the study, PRONicaragua also obtained excellent results, being named the second best national agency in Latin America and eleventh in the world.

The 2012 results were presented by the World Bank on Friday April 20th during the third annual World Investment Forum in Doha, Qatar, a high-level, biennial, multi-stakeholder gathering that is designed to facilitate dialogue and action on the world’s key emerging investment-related challenges.

Opportunities to deepen ties ranging from trade and investments to education and security

The First CEO Summit of the Americas wrapped up on April 14, 2012 with calls for greater cooperation among Western Hemisphere nations on matters ranging from trade and investment to education, science and technology and security, in order to boost prosperity from Canada to Chile.

At the end of the conference, held ahead of the 6th Summit of the Americas, Presidents Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Barack Obama of the United States participated in a roundtable discussion in front of an audience that included more than 700 top executives from many of the Western Hemisphere’s leading companies.

After praising the economic and social progress achieved by countries such as Brazil and Colombia over the past decade, Obama said there were many fields where countries in this hemisphere could collaborate fruitfully. “We’ve never felt more excited about prospects of working as equal partners with our brothers and sisters in Latin America and the Caribbean,” he added.

Rousseff, whose nation recently overtook the United Kingdom as the world’s sixth biggest economy, also spoke in favor of closer cooperation, but stressed that alliances should be based on equality among allies. She called for greater integration of supply chains among countries in the Americas, most of which have to catch up to Asian and Eastern European countries that are well connected with global production systems. “We need to view this region as an area where you cannot have protectionism,” Rousseff added.

Santos, who called for closer coordination of economic policies to avoid the “export of crises,” proposed that the countries of the Americas should arrive with a common position to the G20 meeting due to be held in Mexico in June to discuss possible joint actions to head off another global recession.

The three heads of state also agreed on the importance of improving education and job training in their countries in order to improve people’s employment prospects. “If we were to ask our people what is their greatest concern, I am sure that the answer would be jobs,” Santos added.

Science and technology research and development was also seen as a fertile ground for collaboration in the Americas. Obama noted Brazil’s leadership in biofuels, adding that both countries should intensify their cooperation on developing clean energies.

The conversation among the American, Brazilian and Colombian presidents capped the two-day event organized by Colombia’s private sector with the endorsement of the Colombian government and technical support from the Inter-American Development Bank. During the CEO summit participants discussed opportunities to speed up economic growth and reduce poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean through public-private partnerships and deeper regional integration.

In his opening speech on Friday, Santos called on the private sector to contribute to inclusive economic growth. “Without business people prosperity will not come to the peoples of this continent,” Santos said. “But business also has a tremendous responsibility. You must do everything possible to improve social conditions. Fighting poverty is a great business proposition for everyone.”

In his presentation for the CEO summit, IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno said that the Americas could double the value of their commerce within a decade if governments and the private sector undertake key investments. “This would have a tremendous impact on job creation,” Moreno said, “especially for the millions of young people who enter the job force each year.”’

Moreno called on companies and governments to ensure that benefits of digital connectivity not only benefit wealthy consumers in large cities, but that they also push out into isolated rural areas and down into the base of the income pyramid. “We need to bet on the future, and take infrastructure, products and services not only to the growing urban middle class, but also to isolated populations, to families that aspire to greater social mobility,” Moreno said.

Moreno announced two new IDB initiatives that seek to leverage greater connectivity among public and private sectors to help solve two important development challenges: youth unemployment and access to finance.

The IDB and the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) are teaming up with the International Youth Foundation and the region’s biggest employers, including Walmart and McDonald’s operator Arcos Dorados, to launch an alliance to train as many as 1 million youth for their first jobs over the next decade. They also announced the provision of up to $55 million in financing for institutions to develop new lending models to improve access to credit for women entrepreneurs in the region.

Throughout the CEO summit heads of state and distinguished cultural, diplomatic and business figures shared their vision for accelerating connectivity and development across the hemisphere.

The president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, urged Latin American countries to advance free trade agreements, eliminate trade barriers and embrace open markets. “Trade is one of the key factors for progress,” he said, “and humanity has known for a thousand years that trade generates benefits for all.”

Colombian singer Shakira exhorted the business community to deepen its commitment to corporate social responsibility. “It would be fantastic to see the business leaders of Latin America embrace philanthropic capitalism in the way that executives in other countries have, for example Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who asks multimillionaires to promise that they will pledge half of their fortunes to help the poor,” she said.

Shakira, who started her own educational foundation as a teenager, added that she is waiting to see a Latin American version of philanthropic capitalism, and that she would like to see business people in the region “encourage each other and compete to see who writes the biggest checks.”

On the eve of the CEO summit, the IDB and Shakira’s ALAS Foundation presented their joint awards for excellence in early childhood development. During the ceremony, the artist invited Moreno and leading business people to join a “movement for early childhood” to promote programs to serve children from birth to the time they enter school, prioritizing investments for the 35 million children in the region who currently lack access to adequate nutrition, health care and education services.

Mobile application development is the latest offering from Neoris. The global business and IT consulting company has also developed its own native app for the iPhone, Neoris Mobile, available for download from the iTunes store. The Neoris app easily toggles between English, Spanish and Portuguese for real-time access to the company’s press releases, Twitter feed, YouTube channel, white papers and office locations worldwide.

Neoris Mobile is also available for the Android platform and can be downloaded on Google’s Play Store. Android currently leads the smartphone market, deeming it mission critical to have apps that run on this platform, according to Neoris’ Mobile Solutions Team.

Since apps are actual applications that are installed on a mobile device, the main features are that they can be accessed without a browser or an Internet connection — major advantages for a remote, agile workforce that requires real-time access to collaboration tools, reports and functionality while on the go.

“Native apps can take legacy systems to new levels where there is no need to be physically connected to an intranet or use a PC or laptop to have full access to company’s data or applications,” said Claudio Muruzabal, CEO of Neoris. “The flexibility to connect seamlessly with core business activities and access sensitive information such as KPIs, trends and workflows promptly for better decision making is pivotal for today’s global workforce.”

Neoris’ mobile development offering consists of a complete line of services from analysis, design, construction and implementation. For companies that need to go beyond offering mobile content and require an interactive end-user experience, Neoris can create a customized app to provide:

– Connectivity: No Internet required. A major bonus if you’re on location and don’t have WiFi or hot spot access.

– Interactivity: Users cannot only search for information, but interact with the data in a real-time manner.

– Customization: Tailor-made solutions to offer access to corporate data and meet your users’ needs, whether they are employees, clients or stakeholders.

– Reporting: Mobile access to CRM data, charts and reports for faster time to market and shorter sales cycles.

– Speed: Curb the hassle of navigating a mobile website by gaining direct access to just the information that is required for increased effectiveness.

Research shows that three in five people first turn to an app before searching the web (Mobclix, 2010). This means that more than 60% of mobile users would use an app first instead of searching for the information on a mobile web browser.

“We couldn’t think of a better way to prove our new capabilities than to go back to our roots and deploy solutions for a client that believed in our solutions from the very beginning,” said Muruzabal. Neoris began its history developing winning strategies and solutions for CEMEX and it was fitting for us to develop their pioneering app capabilities.”

Among the solutions that Neoris created for CEMEX was the iPad app CX Investor, a content hub with all relevant information for CEMEX stockholders including video, analyst reports, real-time trading information, annual and quarterly reports and news feeds. Another solution recently launched is the Shift AppStore, which deploys enterprise mobile apps in a secure and user-friendly environment as well as links users to recommended third-party apps available at iTunes. Other enterprise mobile apps developed for CEMEX include competitive intelligence solutions, content aggregators, dashboards and authorization processes.

By Filipe Pacheco 

Ci&T, one of the most prominent Brazilian IT services and outsourcing companies, has always considered exporting IT products and services in a different way than many of its peers – Cesar Gon, its CEO, has made clear how important it is for the company to grow “with a different model” than that made famous by the Indian rivals. 

The same can be considered when growing in the domestic market. In line with that idea, the company has just announced a partnership with an American company, Vistex, an SAP solutions and services provider, to offer SAP products to its Brazilian clients.

“They come with their expertise in the products, especially those designed for the retailing industry, and we add our knowledge of the Brazilian market,” says Paulo Seixas, SAP business director for Ci&T.

He explains that similar products for commercial management had been developed and offered directly by Ci&T in the past, especially through BI (Business Intelligence), and the company intends to continue considering that segment, due to its importance in the IT market. “But buying them from a wrapped company is much more practical and interesting to us,” he told Sourcing Brazil.

“In other situations they were quite common regarding services of SAP platform transitions, but is the first venture regarding specific SAP products and the services related to them,” Seixas said.

The Brazilian executive has told other SAP solutions have been considered for fiscal management software in the future, and more alliances with American SAP service suppliers would be “more than welcome.” Among some of the global Ci&T SAP clients in Brazil are Coca-Cola, BASF, Cemig, Arysta, Arcelor Mittal, Nestlé, Novartis, Roche and Unilever.

“Laurus International is the first call center opened by the President of the Dominican Republic and it is an honor to welcome Dr. Leonel Fernandez, to our building today” commented Rudy Ganna, President and CEO of Laurus International, when the company inaugurated its state‐of‐the‐art call center facility in downtown Santo Domingo at the end of March. “We are eager to show our facilities, which features technology, security, productivity tools and employee amenities never before implemented in the call center industry. We also want to highlight our longstanding and deep commitment to expanding trade in the DR and creating careers for Dominicans that provide the highest level of comfort and care to our employees,” concluded Ganna.

The opening of its latest facility is part of a three year expansion plan in the DR to serve its rapidly growing demand for nearshore contact center and BPO services. Laurus International was founded in 2007 and currently employs 850 people in the Dominican Republic. Laurus provides customer care & technical support services for both “Inbound” and “Outbound” programs to Fortune 500 companies in US. Areas of specialization include sales, technical support, health care, financial services and customer care.

Globant, the Latin American leader in the creation of innovative software products, today announced the appointment of Reid Hoffman to its Board of Advisors. Mr. Hoffman comes to Globant following a recent investment in the company by the not-for-profit Endeavor Foundation´s Catalyst Program, of which Mr. Hoffman is a Board Director.

Globant runs a network of more than 2,500 software engineers, developers and designers based in 15 locations across Latin America and the US, creating innovative software products for international clients including LinkedIn. Globant is responsible for the development of LinkedIn’s mobile applications for Android and iPhone, and the implementation of the OpenSocial framework to integrate applications with the professional network (more information on http://blog.linkedin.com/2007/10/31/linkedin-open-s/).

Commenting on his appointment, Mr. Hoffman said, “Globant is a great example of the Endeavor Foundation’s mission of catalyzing long-term economic growth in emerging markets. The team struck me with their vision, passion and extensive experience working with some of the most innovative companies of today. The work they’re doing is generating jobs and career opportunities for thousands, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to help them continue on this trajectory.”

Mr. Hoffman is Partner at Greylock and executive chairman at LinkedIn, the company he co-founded in 2003. Reid currently serves on the boards of Airbnb, Edmodo, Mozilla (Firefox), Shopkick, Swipely, and Zynga. He has co-led investments in Coupons.com, Groupon, and Viki.

“We are extremely proud to have Reid in our Board of Advisors. I admire his professional experience and especially the way he is always thinking big and different”, said Martín Migoya, Globant CEO and Co-founder. “His technology, business and entrepreneur perspectives will provide strategic points of view on Globant´s challenges. During this year, we need to work hard to keep adding more value to our customers, staying at the edge of every technology and trend, and growing at a constant pace, both organically and through M&As. I believe that Reid will definitely add a lot of value to these plans.”

Globant´s Board of Advisors plays a key role in defining the strategic agenda and providing advice and guidance to the Company. Mr. Hoffman´s knowledge around innovative successful companies will be key to help Globant become a leader in its field.

Source: Reuters

Brazil slashed interest rates by a larger-than-expected 75 basis points on Wednesday, stepping up its battle to revive struggling industries that threaten to derail the recovery of Latin America’s largest economy.

In its boldest move since August, when it surprised markets and began the current round of cuts, the central bank lowered its benchmark Selic lending rate to 9.75 percent from 10.50 percent in a split decision.

Two of the bank’s seven directors wanted to lower the rate by half a percentage point for the fifth straight meeting.

It was only the second time on record that Brazil has cut the Selic below 10 percent, taking borrowing costs to their lowest level in nearly two years.

Directors made the decision hours after data showed industrial output fell nearly three times more than economists had expected, the latest indicator to suggest Brazil’s boom is fizzling.

Central bank chief Alexandre Tombini is treading a fine line by trying to bolster economic growth without rekindling inflation, which has slowed this year after finishing 2011 at 6.5 percent, the highest year-end level in seven years.

By accelerating the pace of interest rate cuts, President Dilma Rousseff’s administration hopes to shield Brazil’s recovery from a strong local currency that economists and business leaders say is crippling its industrial base.

“Generally the central bank slows the rhythm (of interest rate cuts) when it’s near the end of a cycle, but now it’s accelerating. We can expect more cuts to the Selic rate,” said Eduardo Velho, chief economist with Prosper Brokerage.

Traders successfully predicted the steeper rate cut. But most analysts had expected a 50 bps reduction, believing Tombini would opt for a somehwat more cautious approach to anchor inflation expectations even as pressure mounted for policymakers to do more to jumpstart the economy.

“Continuing the process of adjusting monetary conditions, the Copom decided to lower the Selic rate to 9.75 percent,” the bank said in an unusually short statement accompanying its decision.

Signs of an incipient recovery in Brazil, coupled with a slew of new government measures to stimulate growth, could again put pressure on inflation that remains naggingly high.

Faster rate cuts could pressure inflation expectations as they did in the months after rates reached similar lows in 2009-2010. At that time the government was battling to maintain growth in the wake of the U.S. banking crisis.

Inflation expectations for 2013 have risen for three straight weeks, a central bank survey of economists showed.

Recovery Risks

Official data on Tuesday showed Brazil’s economy grew just 2.7 percent in 2011 and barely avoided a recession in the second half of the year. That was a far cry from 2010, when the economy grew 7.5 percent, the fastest pace in more than two decades.

Rising global oil prices and lower growth in China, Brazil’s largest trading partner, could further hamper an economy that is already dealing with high taxes, a tight labor market and weak infrastructure.

Tombini has warned recently of the risks to the recovery stemming from a resurgence of foreign capital inflows that bolstered the value of the real. The currency gained around 8 percent in the first two months of the year.

“This decision had to do with the connection between interest rates and foreign exchange and the government’s inclination to help industrial competitiveness by weakening the currency,” said Tony Volpon, head of Americas emerging markets research at Nomura Securities, of Wednesday’s rate cut.

Industries ranging from auto makers to shoe and food producers have been hit by the strong real, raising their costs and flooding the local market with cheaper imports from abroad.

More Cuts Ahead

Rousseff has taken measures to try to limit what she calls a “tsunami” of cheap money from rich nations. Cash has flooded into emerging market nations from richer ones to take advantage of higher benchmark rates.

In response, the central bank has stepped up interventions in the currency market to prevent the real from strengthening further and undermining competitiveness of local industry.

In theory, lower rates would help limit capital inflows by reducing the returns of investors seeking higher profits in emerging markets. But even at 9.75 percent, Brazilian interest rates would remain among the world’s highest.

Benchmark rates in the United States are near zero.

Easing Brazilian inflation is likely to allow for more rate cuts ahead, but the pace will also depend on the health of the economy.

Inflation slowed to an 11-month low of 6.22 percent in January. Analysts see annual inflation easing further to 5.84 percent in February.

Tombini had already said the Selic rate could fall to single digits and signaled the easing cycle may continue further by saying the economy is growing below potential, which means there is room for more rate cuts without risking runaway inflation.

Source: Smart Planet

U.S. companies looking to outsource IT services and business processes are increasingly eyeing Latin America, and Mexico in particular.

It’s “near shore” versus offshore in action.

Closer to home than India or China, often with a deeper cultural affinity (especially among Southwestern states), Mexico has become an increasingly competitive option in the past five years.

“Mexico has made important advances,” said Javier Allard, president of the Mexican IT industry trade group AMITI. “We don’t want to compete with India, China or the Philippines. There are many niches.”

Neoris, a Mexico-based company that provides IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) services in Mexico, Argentina and elsewhere around the globe, is one of the companies seeing gains, as demand for near shore outsourcing from U.S. companies grows.

Neoris handles the e-commerce portal for a major home improvement retail chain; manages “enterprise resource planning,” or ERP, for an auto parts manufacturer and oversees the integration of distribution systems for a shipping company and its clients.

“The U.S. customer is diversifying their portfolio of (IT services) suppliers,” said Carlos Díaz, director of Neoris outsourcing services. “Companies that had all their eggs in the Asia basket, mainly India, are diversifying to Latin America.”

It’s part of a trend toward diversification, according to Softtek, another IT and BPO near shore services provider with operations in Mexico.

Climbing labor costs, attrition and congested infrastructure in India have motivated companies to look elsewhere for alternatives or complementary IT outsourcing over the past five years, according to a 2011 Softtek white paper.

With its massive, highly trained labor pool, India remains the global leader in outsourced IT services by far. But Mexico ranks at the top of Latin American countries, Díaz said.

Mexico has an IT labor pool of around 600,000 people, Díaz said. That compares with 250,000 in Brazil, the second largest market. Argentina and Chile come next, with 70,000 and 20,000 IT professionals, respectively.

Each year, Mexico graduates around 65,000 IT professionals, Díaz said.

Mexico has proximity going for it. There are around 300 flights daily between the U.S. and Mexico. The country operates in Pacific, Mountain and Central time zones, meaning that business hours are roughly the same. Plus, the countries have nearly two decades of business relationships built upon NAFTA, signed in 1994.

“There is a very important cultural affinity,” said Allard. “In business, we know each other and we understand each other.”

NAFTA provides two other benefits: The pact ensures that intellectual property law similarly covers U.S. companies in Mexico and vice versa, and it provides for easily obtaining business visas to work between the two nations.

Despite a slowdown in the U.S. IT market – the primary driver of growth in Mexico’s near shore services sector – Neoris has logged growth at a rate of 35 percent annually over the past four years, Díaz said. The U.S. market is projected to grow between 4 percent and 6 percent annually through 2014.