Xerox is transferring about 600 employees to an Indian firm - on paper at least. Matt Daneman reports at the Democrat and Chronicle that the shift will see the workers staying on the same projects, but as employees of the Indian firm HCL Technologies Ltd.:
And in most cases, they will stay at their same desks at Xerox locations, he said. "Everything is very similar," [HCL America president Shami] Khorana said, referring to pay and benefits as well as the work. "Sometimes one particular benefit we may have better and Xerox not, and another the other way around." Xerox declined to discuss financial terms. But rather than cost savings, Willem Appelo, president of the Xerox Global Business and Services Group, said the primary motivation was expanding the scope and scale of innovation. "If you look at how our market is changing and how the place in which we operate is changing — the competiveness, the speed with which technology changes — it's clear you need to be able to tap into resources all over the globe," Appelo said.
Business plan for CNY
The Brookings Institution is in Syracuse today to help central New York design an export plan. The Innovation Trail's Emma Jacobs will bring you details later today, but as Marnie Eisenstadt reports at the Post-Standard, Syracuse has been singled out for special attention:
Amy Liu, deputy director and senior fellow of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, said the Central New York 12-county region was asked to join the handful of cities working with Brookings because regional leaders had already shown an ability to come together and act. She named the “Say Yes” initiative as one of the reasons Syracuse stood out, along with the efforts of Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor and CenterState President Rob Simpson to improve the region’s economy. The Syracuse area is also one of four regions in the country that Brookings will be working with to do a better job exporting products overseas. The others are Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Portland.
Getting there the hard way
Upstate presidents of several chambers of commerce are heading to Washington today to lobby for better air and rail service. To make their point, they have to fly into Baltimore from Albany and then grab a train, rather than going direct, reports Eric Anderson at the Times Union:
In Washington, the group plans to meet with U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and U.S. Reps. Chris Gibson and Paul Tonko. They’d like to see more reliable passenger rail service, including improved track conditions and higher priority for passenger over freight trains, as well as more service to Montreal. “It’s a huge trading partner,” Steiner said of Canada. The group also seeks other long-delayed rail improvements, including a second track between Albany and Schenectady, and a fourth track at the Rensselaer CDTA rail station. And they’d like express trains between the Capital Region and New York City, and the ability to bring bicycles on board Amtrak trains.
Digital water cooler
An Ithaca company is aggregating the collected wisdom of hundreds of business leaders. Shawnee A. Barnes reports at the Ithaca Journal that Prendismo allows downloads of the content on a subscription or per clip basis:
"It's a library of wisdom," explained company co-founder and president Kirsten Johnston Barker. "There is all this tacit knowledge that people have but don't necessarily write down but would share in stories around the water cooler," noted Johnston Barker. "We've captured them, stored them and made them accessible."
Quickly
- Eric Anderson at the Times Union has details on GE's new agreement with its union.
- Binghamton broke ground on a new outdoor performance space, the South Side Commons, yesterday, reports Jennifer Micale at the Press & Sun-Bulletin.
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