Tag Archives: Hyderabad

Day 6: Sightseeing in Hyderabad and flight to Chennai

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After a very good dinner and an exiting night out (at least for some of the guys), the day started an hour later than usual. Giving us a chance to rest a little bit longer, we met at 9 at the hotel entrance and headed to a shopping mall in Hyderabad. It took us about 30min to get to the “Hypermall” located at the outskirts of the city, only to find out that they open at 11 o’clock. So we decided to visit a special market known for its unique handcrafted art items, such as wooden sculptures, pearls or luxurious pashmina shawls. After driving another 30min, we found out that this market has moved to another location. However, we decided to go back to the shopping mall as we were running out of time.

On arrival we have split up and moved on to an individual shopping trip. The mall consists of more than 50 shops and was beautifully decorated.  Although the “Sale” season was still on the prices were moderate.

We met at 14:00 at our usual restaurant within the Savory hotel. The hotel has just been opened and therefore it was still unknown to the locals, causing the rickshaw ride to be an adventure, once again.

The lunch was very good, truly one of the best restaurants in Hyderabad! We headed back to our hotel afterwards to pack our luggage and to check out. After loading our baggage on the bus, we shared some of our Swiss Chocolate with the local kids and a few workers from the construction site next to our hotel.

Mr. Boev from his social side

As we headed to the airport, the bus took us through various beautiful sceneries with lots of green vegetation and impressive rock structures, a pleasant chance of scenery in a very urban trip so far.

A spectacular view on Chennai’s skyline was revealed as we approached the airport. Later after we loaded our baggage on the bus, the driver took us to the Marriot hotel where we had dinner and a few good drinks.

Day 5: Hyderabad Cognizant and Microsoft

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We met at 9 am and drove to Cognizant Hyderabad, where we had a half-day presentation about EMI Electronic Media Interchange. They informed us about their iPhone App solution for their customers. The second topic was about their supply chain management application, which was designed for a tomato sauce company from the UK. The connection between the core business and the supply chain management of this solution was very interesting.

After that we had lunchtime in the new business hotel Sarovar. The lunch was amazing, although we couldn’t order some beers because this hotel was so new, that they still don’t have any alcohol license.

In the afternoon we went to Microsoft. The building was huge and exclusive. Microsoft was the reason that Hyderabad became a main IT city in India. After Microsoft decided to build a new hub in Hyderabad, some other big companies followed them. First, we got an introduction from a Senior Program Manager about their developments here in Hyderabad. Beside of many Microsoft applications they developed Office 365 in Hyderabad. It was great to see where this cutting edge software has been produced. After that, we changed from a meeting room to the visitor center, where we had a short introduction to Xbox Kinect.

Day 4: Visiting Cognizant and UBS in Hyderabad

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This thursday we were invited at Cognizant in Hyderabad, where also the UBS is placed. We met us at 8:30 in the morning and went there with our stylish tour bus. As we arrived we had to walk through a metal detector for the security check and we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the campus so we had to leave our mobile phones and cameras at the security desk.
After taking seat in a state of the art meeting room the first speaker presented us, what Cognizant in Hyderabad is doing especially in the field of BPO (Business Process Outscoursing). He explained us why companies should think about BPO. The main point about this topic is that companies should focus on their core businesses to generate as much value for their customers as possible. So they should outsource all operatives and services which don’t belong to the companies main skills.

After this session Thomas Zeindler, the UBS vendor relationship manager of India joined our group and hold a presentation about how UBS operates in Hyderabad. At the end of this part we were able to see the UBS labs and to talk to the chief researcher. 

After lunch we stayed at Cognizant and Shailaja Jha (Assistant Vice President, Information Media & Entertainment) explained us what Cognizant do in the domain of media and entertainment. Most of us were surprised that Cognizant is such a big player in this area, working with well known companies like Sony Entertainement or Warner Borthers. Another interesting point is that they also develop apps for mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad. After we picked up our stuff at the security point we moved back to our residency.

At the evening we had dinner in a new built hotel in Hyderabad called Sarovar where Thomas Zeindler joined us. Finally some of us went to the Novotel-Bar with Thomas which is by the way the only bar in town that don’t closes doors at 23.00.

Day 3: Sightseeing in Bangalore

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Today the group counted around 8 people at 8.30am instead of the expected 20. The night activities seem to be exhausting. 🙂 But 15 minutes later the waiting students doubled and were ready to start.

Our coach drove us through the whole city with a lot of traffic jam and crowded streets. Almost everybody took this opportunity to have a nap. One hour later we visited the Bull temple in south Bangalore – an impressive temple which is sacred for Hindi people. We found a granite monolith of Nandi there, built by Kempegowda in the 16th-century Dravidian style. Almost everyone left the temple with a red dot between his eyes and found shelter in the coach to avoid the begging children waiting outside.

The second stop was at the Lalbagh Botanical Garden which is famous for roses and flower shows. Unfortunately July is not the best time to visit the huge area. However we found a few  monkeys having lunch and posing for pictures, a lake and a lot of different flowers.

BIT09a in the botanical garden Bangalore

BIT09a in the botanical garden Bangalore

As we were running out of time we hit the road again and went back to our guest houses to get our baggage. On the way to the airport we pulled over at the Orchid restaurant again to try typical Indian food which was very delicious even though it was – typical India – very spicy.

The flight to Hyderabad was smooth and we got squeezed into a bus to chek-in in our new guest houses. The contrast in India couldn’t be more present: Next to a field of tents for homeless people the world’s biggest companies have their modern and luxury office buildings. Tired but happy we had dinner in a very good hotel with a buffet providing food from all over the world – especially Indian food.

We’re looking forward to our next company visits tomorrow!

Center for BIT goes India 2011

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This summer the Center for Business Information Management organizes a study trip to India in cooperation with Cognizant Technology Solutions. During the period between the 17th and the 30th of July the class BIT09a will visit the 4 famous outsourcing destinations Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and New Delhi. Cognizant is going to open their doors in every city to give a deep insight into their daily business. Beside visiting companies there will be plenty of sightseeing and also a sight behind the curtain of a unique India culture. We’re sure it will be an impressive experience for the students and also for the organizers.

We’d like to take the opportunity to express our gratefulness for the support given by Cognizant. Without Cognizant it wouldn’t have been possible.

We hope we’ll have an interesting study trip without any accidents. Stay up to date and follow the students on this blog!

The following places will be visited:

[mappress]

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About Cognizant:

Cognizant

Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50 delivery centers worldwide and approximately 112,500 employees as of May 1, 2011, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.