Best at CSR in India (December 29, 2008)

Steria India win award for "Best Corporate Social Responsibility Practice"

At the Social and Corporate Governance Awards 2008 on 19 December, Steria India won the award for "Best Corporate Social Responsibility Practice".

Bombay Stock Exchange Limited, NASSCOM Foundation and Times Foundation have come together to present the "Social and Corporate Governance Awards - 2008". The final qualification round for this prestigious award was held at the International Convention Hall, Bombay Stock Exchange, Mumbai on 19 December 2008. The winners were declared on the same day.

Some of the biggest names, representing a cross section of Indian industry, were keen participants for this important honour. The 'awards' encouraged organisations to participate in the following categories:

• Organisation that offers the Best Return to Investors

• Organisation that offers the Best Return to the Consumers

• Organisation that offers the Best Return to the Channel Partner / Ancillary Development

• Best Corporate Social Responsibility Practice

Steria India participated in the 'Best Corporate Social Responsibility Practice' category.

The awards committee reviewed the 78 entries received for the different categories and short listed 36 companies for the final round. These short listed companies were invited to Mumbai on the 19 December 2008 for the final round.

Representatives from the short listed companies had to make a 10 minute presentation to a panel of jurors - all eminent personalities from diverse backgrounds. To keep the selection process completely transparent and open, no further information about the jury was available. The 10 minute presentation was followed by a 2 minute question and answer session with the jury. Competition between the companies was indeed keen with each company trying their best to convey the right messages and the full impact of the work that they do.

On 19 December 2008, Gayathri Mohan - VP, CSR India, presented Steria India CSR to this eminent panel at the International Convention Hall, Bombay Stock Exchange, Mumbai. She was accompanied by Chaitrali Inamdar, CSR champion based in Pune.

The presentations which began at 9 am went through the day. An independent panel of auditors collated the data, the jury's ratifications and compiled the results. Finally at around 7pm the results were announced, with Steria India being declared a winner in the - Best Corporate Social Responsibility Practice - category. Other winning companies in this category, along with Steria, included big names like ITC, Bharti, Hindustan Unilever, Polaris, Pepsico and Canara Bank.

Gayathri Mohan, VP, CSR - India, received the winner's trophy from Mr. L P Agarwal, Chief Financial Officer, Bombay Stock Exchange Limited. The formal awards function, to honour the winning organisations, is scheduled to be held sometime in the first week of February at Mumbai.

This award represents an important honour for Group Steria and an important landmark for Steria India.

Steria India Management along with the CSR Team would also like to dedicate this award to all our Steria India staff volunteers who have given so much of their personal time and have worked hard to make our CSR programmes a great success.

One Day Challenge India (November 19, 2008)

Well Done - India staff... Congratulations

Many thanks to each and every person of Steria who participated in the One Day Challenge initiatives across India. The build up activities for the D-Day began as early as 14 Aug'08, with Rose Days and Choclate Days and ofcourse the Sports Tournaments in our community projects.

From 03 Nov'08 to 13 Nov'08, there were approximately 120 events planned and executed across Chennai, Noida and Pune, by our ODC Champions.

All community events mostly happened between 1000-1200 hrs from 3 Nov'08 onwards, with Sports Days, Sponsor a Meal, Steet Plays, Traffic Awareness Campaigns, Career Guidance Sessions, Teacher Training Sessions, etc.

All other events mostly happened in the offices after 12 noon. These included Quizzes, Video Conferences between children of 3 centres, Click a pic with Big Brother Teddy, Environment Awareness Campaigns, Badges Sales, Merchandise Sales, Bazaars, Food stalls, etc.

The Senior Management of Steria India - the India Business Board (IOB) led by Dr.Mukesh Aghi, devoted 2 hours of their time in a fundraising event, apart from their support to other smaller initiatives. The ODC Raffle, was a huge success as it was felt that all the members of the middle and senior management (B4 and above) should participate in the raffle. They in turn encouraged all their team members to participate in the raffle.

Special thanks to the Facilities Team and the HR Team in all the 3 locations, who put their best foot forward and came forward to extend all support to make ODC India a great success.

The Travel Dept., led by Sumita Watsya (Mary), were at their best in getting goodies as gift hampers and meal coupons, which were all used as prizes.

A team of volunteers from Pune came together, wrote the lyrics, composed music, and completed recording with vocals, and created a India ODC Hymn. Airtel, the mobile service provider, sponsored and made India ODC Hymn as the caller tune available for the next 1 year.

There were prizes galore to be won, including iphones, ipods and the all new Tata Nano car in the online ODC Raffle, which was open to all our colleagues in India. Each raffle ticket came with a free ODC T-shirt, which were proudly worn by employees in our three India centers on 14 November. The lucky draw happened at Noida on the 12 Nov. with Dr.Mukesh Aghi, India CEO, picking the lucky winners. Gayathri Mohan, Vice President - India CSR reports, "The ODC raffle was a very successful fundraiser, contributing almost 50% of the ODC kitty'. The bumper prize - the new Tata Nano - sponsored by Steria Southern France, was won by Raghav Mudgal. Other prizes were sponsored by Julian Relph of Steria UK and the RMG team in UK. The ODC T-shirts were also sponsored by Dr.Mukesh Aghi and the India Marketing Team., The raffle raised more than Rs.850000 or - 10800 for The Steria India Foundation Graduate Scholarship Scheme (SIFGSS).

Well done ODC Volunteers, CSR Team, the Senior Management and all the staff members in Steria India.

IOB Chatori Gali (November 18, 2008)

IOB Chatori Gali

On 10 November'08, as a fund raising effort for One Day Challenge, the India Operations Board, led by Dr.Mukesh Aghi, CEO, were for a change in chef coats and chef caps, running a street food stall. Their PAs were their able assistants, as usual. As the smell of tasty snacks wafted across the office, more and more people could be seen lining up to buy the coupons and bite into the food.

Shantanu Banerjee, HR Director, India, was there strumming old melodies with his guitar, and providing the background score to those who wanted to demonstrate their singing skills. Tarun Singhal, who led the initiative in Noida, notes, "This was an opportunity for our senior management - the IOB (India Operations Board) to demonstrate their support to this wonderful global community initiative". The IOB members devoted 2 hours of their time for this effort and were able to raise Rs.45000 or £600 for SIFGSS.

Big Brother Teddy (November 17, 2008)

Giant ODC Teddies