IT has always been the talk of the town in these days and Indiabeing of the major country for offshore outsourcing has always been a target for compliment or criticism. A survey was conducted a month ago regarding the most risky cities for outsourcing work and out of 25 cities mentioned therein 8 cities were from India. However, it is necessary to focus on the criteria on which this judgment is taken. The cities cited as risky are in terms of several political, geographical and global issues such as terrorism, pollution, geopolitical concerns and so on. Therefore, one cannot say on the basis of these reports that India is unsafe for outsourcing work.

The Indian IT companies work with utmost care and concern about their outsourcing clients as it enables thousands of IT employees to fetch their livelihood. Besides, there is no denial to the fact that Indians are well skilled in the outsourcing work with good command over English and complete technological know-how. The cities like Delhi, Chandigarh, Pune, and Bangalore are some of the cities that are popular and might be considered risky in terms of their crucial locations. These are the cities which are prone to terrorism attack and so on as they are the major cities in India. However, the work efficiency they provide is at par with the global market requirements.

Ahmedabad has recently become a hub for the IT industry outsourcing companies as all the latest facilities and technologies are now available over here easily. The city has some of the well established that provide with the best quality of work. A number of companies have come up and flourishing in the IT business due to the immense potential and capability that the IT experts of Ahmedabad hold.

By 2011, RBS aims to save around $4 billion in operational costs by outsourcing non-core IT activities

UK-based Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to outsource around $2 billion worth of back office and application development projects to the Indian outsourcers, including TCS and Infosys, reported THE ECONOMIC TIMES.

By 2011, RBS aims to save around $4 billion in operational costs by outsourcing non-core IT activities and plans to focus more on marketing initiatives, reported the newspaper, citing Stephen Hester, chief executive of RBS.

According to Reuters, RBS plans to consolidate its existing data centres, replace the current claims system in its insurance business, and deploy new retail banking solutions. Indian tech vendors are set to gain from around $9.5 billion technology spend planned by the RBS.

RBS also works with CSC and Sapient, and may retain them for onsite projects. For RBS, India is an important part of the bank’s restructuring and integration with ABN Amro, reported the newspaper.

Sabyasachi Satyaprasad, partner at offshore advisory firm Tholons, said: “RBS is planning to consolidate its processes across retail and wholesale banking, an initiative that was long pending, so this spend is not really surprising.”

Source:http://www.banking-business-review.com/news/rbs_plans_to_outsource_2b_projects_to_india_091007

NEW DELHI: Hospital chain, Fortis Healthcare today announced a five-year outsourcing deal estimated to be over $15 million with IT major HCL Inf
osystems for implementing software solutions at all its facilities.

“The deal is part of a five-year agreement under which HCL will undertake complete outsourcing of IT systems and processes of Fortis Healthcare Ltd,” Fortis Healthcare vice-president Corporate affair G S Bedi said.

As per the deal, IT platform for all the hospitals in Fortis network will be standardised through the IT system installed by HCL within a period of twelve months and the first hospital will go live by the end of February 2010.

Asked about the size of the deal, Bedi said, the total size of the deal would be more than $15 million and actual cost depends upon the number of facilities group acquires.

As part of the deal, HCL would install software solutions at all Fortis hospitals and would also impart training to its employee, he said.

This deal makes Fortis the first healthcare delivery company in India to undertake complete strategic outsourcing for IT applications and infrastructure management, Fortis said.

“This tie up will create newer benchmarks in the quality of healthcare delivery and patient care and take it to the next level, IT forms the back bone for hospital operations and improved patient care,” Fortis Healthcare Managing Director Shivinder Mohan Singh said.

Source:http://infotech.indiatimes.com/News/HCL-Info-bags-outsourcing-deal-from-Fortis/articleshow/5090130.cms

BANGALORE: Nordea, a leading financial services group in the Nordic and Baltic region, along with peers Svenska Handelsbanken and SEB, are among
a new set of customers planning to offshore technology work to India. These players aim to bring down operational costs by up to 30% and cope with the slump more effectively.

Indian tech vendors like TCS, HCL, L&T Infotech, Wipro, Infosys and Cognizant are in discussion with Nordic customers for outsourcing contracts potentially worth around $100 million each over the next few years.

Outsourcing advisory firm EquaTerra recently analysed around 370 outsourcing contracts signed by over 200 Nordic customers, and concluded that Indian service providers scored better than European vendors such as TietoEnator and Capgemini, when it came to customer satisfaction. EquaTerra analysed almost $4.3 billion worth of outsourcing contracts signed by these customers.

“Many Nordic firms are looking at some of the successful offshoring case studies in their region such as Ericsson and Ikea, and are now beginning to explore similar opportunities,” said Sridhar Vedala, managing director of offshoring advisory firm Quantam Step.

Most Nordic countries, especially Sweden, have high cost structures. This is putting pressure on local customers to seek low-cost resources in locations like India, which will help them tighten belts by up to 30-40%. For instance, when Handelsbanken was seeking suppliers for a new outsourcing contract, it shortlisted six vendors, including Logica, TietoEnator, TCS, L&T Infotech, HCL Technologies and Hexaware. However, despite the presence of European outsourcers, the firm finally decided to go ahead with pure offshore vendors such as HCL and L&T Infotech.

“India remains the dominant offshore destination for Nordic firms. 61% of the respondents are using India to fulfil at least some of their global sourcing needs,” EquaTerra said in a recent report. When contacted by ET, Indian tech vendors declined to comment on any potential outsourcing contract being pursued by them.

TCS, India’s biggest software outsourcing firm, said Nordic customers are indeed beginning to explore more outsourcing options. “While the overall Nordic IT market is expected to remain flat in 2009, the demand for services outsourcing continues to be firm and we are seeing continued growth,” said AS Lakhminarayanan, vice-president & head-Europe, TCS. “Norway in particular is expected to demonstrate one of the highest IT market growth rates in Europe in 2009, estimated at between 1-2% annually, while most other markets have remained flat or even declined,” he added.

Customers such as Handelsbanken have been exploring offshoring of IT work for almost a year, and a worsening economic crisis forced them to look at offshoring more seriously. The bank is now seeking suppliers for maintaining its legacy mainframe systems, and also make them work with newer business software applications.

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