outsourcing

Saudi Arabian Airlines announced that it has awarded a long term next generation IT infrastructure transformation contract to Wipro Arabia Ltd. Wipro Arabia, a joint venture between Wipro Ltd. and Dar Al Riyadh Group, provides IT Solutions & Services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The 5 years agreement, which is valued at over $100 Million, was signed in a gala ceremony in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

As a part of its privatization program, Saudi Arabian Airlines has undertaken an extensive business transformation exercise, which will create an organization designed around innovation, agility and customer centricity. An IT Master Plan aimed at overhauling central IT was developed for supporting this transformation. By leveraging cutting edge Information Technology, Saudi Arabian Airlines will effectively transform into a world-class service provider to maintain its position as the leading airline in the region.

To enable Saudi Arabian Airlines realize its vision, Wipro Arabia will deliver a futuristic, scalable & efficient managed infrastructure platform based on industry standards and best of breed technology choices. This will become the bedrock for driving all operations and business transformation at Saudi Arabian Airlines. The scope for Wipro Arabia includes data centre consolidation & management, integration and management of a highly secure converged network and comprehensive enterprise wide Managed Infrastructure & Security Services.

Speaking on the occasion, Khalid Almolhem, Director General of Saudi Arabian Airlines said, “Building a customer centric organization culture and systems is a key priority area for us. This is what will differentiate Saudi Airlines from its competitors and ensure market leadership for us. It is highly reassuring to have Wipro as our partner in this transformational journey. We will extensively leverage Wipro’s innovations in technology lifecycle management and service delivery to create an agile and empowered organization.”

Suresh Vaswani, President – Wipro Infotech & Global IT Practices said, “We are delighted to be partnering Saudi Airlines at the cusp of their transformation. Wipro will combine its service delivery excellence & deep technology expertise to deliver a seamless experience for the customers of Saudi Airlines. We value the partnership with Saudi Airlines and are committed to making this initiative a success.”

Mowafaq Jelaidan, VP – Information Technology, Saudi Arabian Airlines said, “We required a strong technology partner to architect an effective and efficient managed IT infrastructure, enabling enterprise wide customer-centric services. We selected Wipro because of their strong service delivery processes & frameworks, breadth of technology talent, immense credibility with technology principals and customers, and industry leadership in Managed Infrastructure Services.”

Infosys BPO, the business process outsourcing subsidiary of Infosys Technologies, has announced that NelsonHall, a leading BPO analyst, has positioned the company’s Securities Processes Outsourcing operations in the Leaders Quadrant in its report, ‘Securities Processing BPO Assessment and Forecast’ released in May 2007. According to the report, Infosys leads the offshore vendors in the securities processing services market in 2006 with estimated revenues of $20 million.

NelsonHall defines securities processing as processes that support the ownership (including change of ownership) of investment instruments (excluding insurance, annuities, drafts, or bills of exchange). Securities processes include trade related services:

• Pre-trade services (industry usage: Front office): trade execution and capture
• Post-trade services (industry usage: Middle office): settlement, trade match
• Portfolio services (industry usage: Back office): custody, transfer agency, fund accounting

The ranking uses a two-dimensional matrix that evaluates vendors based on their ability to provide flexibility for asset managers to enter new areas competently and manage rapid growth with better intelligence.
"We believe that this ranking by NelsonHall is a key milestone that reinforces Infosys’ leadership in the Securities processing space. Infosys understands that the requirements of capital markets customers are different from banking customers and recognizes the need to address operational challenges like market-specific domain knowledge, smaller team sizes, fragmented processes and complexity of systems. Coupled with this is our ability to understand the various dimensions of risk and the need to put commensurate controls. Our customers have recognized this and we believe this analysis from NelsonHall once again demonstrates our differentiating strengths," said Ritesh Idnani, Vice President and Head of Worldwide Sales and Marketing and Banking and Capital Markets Unit Head.

According to Andy Efstathiou, Director, NelsonHall’s Banking Program, “Securities processing BPO vendors need to support clients’ portfolio and trading activities through improved process execution and improved business insight. The critical success factors for vendors are the ability to provide flexibility for asset managers to enter new areas competently and manage rapid growth with better intelligence.”

The global Securities Processing BPO market is growing rapidly based on new products, markets, customers and changing regulations. While the U.S. Securities Processing BPO market is expected to reach $34bn by 2011, the European market will continue to be propelled by cross-border market entry and the ROW is dominated by Asia in terms of amount and growth rates.