World's top 10 companies

Toyota Motors is 70-years old. Headquartered in Japan, it is one of the world's largest automobile manufacturers. The company was founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to manufacture automobiles.
Fujio Cho, is the chairman of the company. Toyota also owns and operates Lexus and Scion brands. Toyota's management philosophy is 'lean manufacturing' and 'just in time production'. Toyota continues to promote localisation, based on the principle of producing vehicles in those countries or regions where demand exists.
In Japan, Toyota has equipped Takaoka plant with the company's most-advanced technologies. In R&D, Toyota is continuing to focus its efforts in the three key areas of the environment, safety and energy. Toyota has positioned hybrid technologies as core technologies that can contribute to resolving environmental issues. Toyota Motor Co reported sales to the tune of $203.80 billion and profits stood at $13.99 billion in 2007.

Global outsourcing deals rising again, says Infosys

Indian infotech major Infosys Technologies has witnessed an increase in outsourcing deals as all major markets are back on the recovery track, a top company official said."What has changed in the last two quarters is that the markets have improved and deals are coming back. We see more deal-flows," Infosys' CEO and managing director, S Gopalakrishnan, told reporters on the sidelines of a CII meet in Mumbai on Wednesday.
As the deal pipeline is improving, the IT major is looking at diversifying its business worldwide
"The recovery is led by the United States and other emerging markets such as India and China. The US contributes 60 per cent of the total business. Clearly this is having more impact on the Indian IT services. Proactively we are investing more on diversifying our business," he said.
Currently, the company's revenue distribution is 60 per cent from North America, 25 per cent from Europe and the balance from other parts of the world.
"In 5-years from now, we see the revenue distribution at 40 per cent from North America, 40 per cent from Europe and 20 per cent from rest of the world," Gopalkrishnan said.
Pricing would remain stable, he said.
On the increase in minimum alternate tax (MAT) announced in the Budget, Gopalakrishnan said that his company would not be impacted by it.
When asked if volatility in currency movement would affect business, he said any one per cent appreciation or depreciation in currency would affect margins by 0.40 per cent