Global IT majors in contest over $1 billion Bharti Airtel outsourcing deal
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys Technologies, India’s largest and second largest IT services vendors respectively, are out of the race for Bharti Airtel’s over $1 billion outsourcing deal for the telecom major’s African project. Sources close to the development said that Bharti Airtel has finally shortlisted five firms – three MNCs and two domestic IT majors for the project.
The shortlisted multinationals include IBM, which presently manages the telecom firm’s IT operations in India and Sri Lanka, Accenture and Hewlett-Packard (HP). Tech Mahindra and Wipro, India’s third largest IT services vendor, are among the two domestic information technology firms in the fray for the project that is speculated to be among the largest IT contracts covering as many as 15 nations in Africa. Quoting anonymous sources, a financial website reports that IBM is being considered at the favorite contender for the contract.
Nevertheless, despite being a current vendor of Bharti, IBM is said to be confronted with solid challenge from the other four shortlisted companies which have offered tempting terms and conditions. The same source, an executive of the telecom major, further said that Bharti is seriously considering the offers placed by the other contending IT firms since it desires to expand its IT alternatives rather than placing all the ‘eggs in the same basket’.
It may be mentioned here that during the end of April 2010, Bharti Airtel had solicited Request for Information (RFI) regarding outsourcing its operations valued at more than $1 billion following its acquisition of Kuwait-based Zain Telecom. According to experts, this is a hint from the telecom major that it was seeking more favorable offers compared to what is being present by it current collaborators.
The news report further quotes executives of top IT firms, speaking on the condition of anonymity, the Indian telecom major had floated an amended tender for its information technology deals earlier in July this year owing to a number of terms and condition, which, they reported benefitted the present vendor of the company IBM. However, this could not be ascertained.
Global IT giant IBM is presently having contracts with three major Indian telecom firms, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, while Wipro serves Telenor and Aircel. Tech Mahindra, on the other hand, has a deal with Etislat DB (Swan). In addition, Tech Mahindra has earlier worked for Zain Telecom. The other two contenders, Accenture and Hewlett-Packard are yet to enter into any deal with any Indian telecom company.