Wednesday, December 17, 2008

IT firms hike referral bonuses

By -siliconindia news bureau
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Hyderabad:

Though recession goes on worsening, some U.S. firms in India are on a hiring mode for outsourcing jobs and they are increasingly hiking referral bonuses for existing employees. Referral bonuses are supposed to be given to employees who refer talented people to the company. U.S. Firms like Deloitte, ADP, Pegasystems and Broadridge in India have hiked the referral bonuses already, reported The Economic Times.

Deloitte, which employs over 6,000 people in India, has doubled its referral bonus to employees last week. The employees will now get Rs. 10,000-50,000 for every person who they refer, depending on the level at which they will be joining the firm. The company has also increased its campus hiring by 20-30 percent this year.

An industry analyst said, "This is the right time to hire as salary expectations of people have become realistic and referral system helps identify suitable people. Besides, expansion of India operations will help the firm cut cost significantly and mitigate the risk of the U.S. slowdown."

"Most firms in the West are trimming down workforce there to cut cost. This is expected to bring more offshore work to India. This could lead to an increased demand for people especially the high-end talent pool," said, Prashant Srivastava, HR expert & managing partner (India), The Gallup Organization.He also mentioned that firms are under pressure to scale up faster and the referral system provides a cost-effective way to get people with right-skill and attitude. Compared to the recruitment process through executive search firms referral will be at least 10-15 percent cheaper.

Pegasystems, a U.S. based business process management (BPM) software provider is looking to hire 60-80 high-end talent-pool for its R&D center in Hyderabad in six months. "Our referral bonus ranges from Rs 25,000-75,000 per person. As we want to scale up our operations at a faster pace, we have increased this bonus by Rs 50,000 for referring a person at certain positions like tech lead. Hence, if a candidate is selected, an existing employee can earn up to Rs 1.25 lakh, which will be beyond his salary.

We will give this extra benefit for the next six months," said Suman Reddy Eadunuri, MD, Pegasystems Worldwide India.Similarly, ADP, the $9 billion business outsourcing solutions firm, is looking at recruiting 400 people in the next six months at its Hyderabad and Pune centers. This year (June-December), the company added 400 people. Of this, about 52 percent were selected through referral process as against 45 percent last fiscal.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

HR Payroll Software - Why It's So Hard To Get A Price

By Expert Author: Clay C. Scroggin

The topic of this article is to describe why getting a price for an HR Payroll software application is not as easy as getting a price on a house, a car, or a new pair of shoes. Think of all the decisions you would have to make, before getting an accurate price, if you were going to build your own home.

Using Google Adword’s keyword tool, I did a little research into how many people in an average month are searching for the price of HR Payroll Software. The resulting numbers are lower than I might have expected. Still, per month, just on Google it appears that at least hundreds of people are searching for the cost of HR and Payroll software based only on the keywords I uncovered below.

Keyword Average Searches Per Month
• HRIS Price 12
• Cost of HRIS 58
• HRIS Costs 170
• HR software pricing 36

HR Payroll software prices depend on too many variables to simply offer a quick quote

When I was selling HR Payroll Software systems, I worked with one HRIS product that offered 15 unique product options, two platform options, and two purchase options. The cost of that system for a 200 employee company varied tremendously. This price could have ranged from $3,000 to well over $40,000. So, if someone simply asked for a price, or even a ball park price, it was hard for me to present one without knowing exactly what options they were interested in and what their needs were. Often times the prospect did not know either until I performed a needs analysis and/or showed a demo.

HR and Payroll Software Salesmanship

As an HR and Payroll software sales person, if I was selling product X and knew my competition was product Y, which offered half the functionality and 30% less on cost, I would be hesitant to provide a prospect a price of my HRIS system until I was able to show the added value. This is not only salesmanship; it’s also good service. It’s important that you not base your decision for HR Payroll software only on price. The best value may not be the lowest price but may be found in the closest match to your company’s unique needs. You may be impatient to see the cost, but in the example above, the customer wins by waiting.

There are sales training courses which teach sales people to say in control of the sale by holding off on providing a price as long as possible. I am not one of those that agree with this strategy but you may very well see it.

The HR Payroll software companies want to keep the prices as secret as possible

We have asked all of our HR Payroll software participating vendors to include at least some type of price range for our site, but currently 8 of 13 have elected not to do so. Part of the reason is what I have laid out above but these companies are also very secretive about their prices. The least expensive systems on the market have no problem publishing their prices. The more expensive and comprehensive systems on the market are much less likely to do so.

I lost a vendor earlier in the year because they would not participate in our service unless every vendor on our site, not only showed their pricing, but showed it in exactly the same format as they offered theirs. I can’t say I disagree but I am not in a position to force our vendors to comply.

So can other websites actually provide quick quotes for multiple HR and Payroll software applications?

NO! For the exact same reasons I have laid out here, the HR Payroll software vendors aren’t going to provide the cost without understanding who the prospect is and what their needs are. So, the site I am referring to without mentioning them by name, simply distributes your information to a number of HRIS or HRMS vendors and then let’s those individual vendors contact you, and after a needs analysis and perhaps even a demo, the “free HRIS quotes” can be provided. There’s nothing quick about it; nor would you want it to be.

The funny thing is our keyword position for HRIS pricing is number nine on Google. And I’ll be the first to tell you that of 13 systems currently on the site, we only offer price ranges on 5 of those products.

Closing

There are valid industry reasons why you may find it difficult to quickly and easily receive prices on a number of HR Payroll software applications. I would recommend staying patient and realize a quick price may not be the most reliable or in your best interest.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

7 Reasons Why SEO Needed For E-Commerce Websites

Search engine optimization, commonly known as SEO, is the technique that is being currently used by almost all the websites for making themselves popular on the Internet. No website seems to be surviving well without being in the top rankings of the search engine.

When it comes to E-commerce websites, SEO plays a very important part because they are business sites and are put on the internet for generating revenue for the business people who own them.

There are many benefits that a company gets from SEO companies maintaining a top graded SEO portfolio. Seven of the most important advantages are:

* The e-commerce websites seo are noticed by all the major search engines, such as, Google, Yahoo, and MSN on the Internet. This will make the websites get a high page ranking. Visitors usually visit websites that are in the first three or first four ranks.
* By being in the favorable search engine rankings a huge amount of network traffic is directed to the search engine optimized e-commerce website. This will help the websites under dedicated SEO firms to be at a more advantageous position in comparison to their competitors.
* Other means, such as the Pay-per-click method need not be resorted to, to get the e-commerce website noticed on the Internet. These are very expensive methods as the owner of the website has to pay a huge amount of money to the visitors to visit their sites and they serve benefits for a short span.
* The advantage with search engine optimization is that it indirectly works as an Internet marketing tool for your e-commerce website. By being seo optimized your e-commerce website will constantly be in the top positions of the search engine rankings. This itself will greatly serve to increase the value of the website and draw a lot of search engine loyalists towards itself.
* An e-commerce website SEO saves you the expenditure of advertising explicitly to draw the attention of the web surfers. You just have to know the method of getting into the good books of the search engines.
* It is also seen that search engines act as long-term promoters for the e-commerce websites, unlike the advertising sites which publicize a website for only as long as they are paid a fee. The search engines are not like that. Your website can be on the top ranks for as long as another site does not optimize itself better than yours which can be some months if you are lucky enough.
* Return on investment is one thing that you can bank on. You generally put up an e-commerce site to get good business. With seo you can draw a large network clientele which can eventually bring you a good ROI.

Seo services can be utilized for making your e-commerce website get top priority in the search engine rankings. Seo India is one of the leading software programming sectors that are being used for optimizing websites on the Internet. Search engine optimization done ethically can only serve you top rankings in search engines naturally for long time. Choose SEO companies that provide ethical SEO
Services.

Thanks & Regards,
Niraj Pradhan
Product Evangelist| MinVesta Infotech Ltd. |Mob:+91 9246190827 | Ph: +91 40 23738072 Extn:201||email: niraj.pradhan@minvesta.com | website: www.minvesta.com |
Blog: http://minerva-hrms.blogspot.com/|
http://www.linkedin.com/in/nirajpradhan |Blog: http://hcmgyan.blogspot.com/|

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