IBM on Monday bagged a 10-year IT outsourcing order worth Rs 298 crore from financial services provider India Infoline (IIFL).
Soon, IBM will be taking over the IT operations of IIFL which includes managing over 700 of its branches across India.
The IT infrastructure at IIFL consists of over 450 servers in five data centres and nine local server rooms with 15,000 end-user assets across branches. It includes a Wide Area Network that connects all IIFL offices to the corporate offices in Mumbai.
Besides infrastructure management, IBM will also take over the entire support for ‘custom built application stack' which it will co-manage with IIFL's application team.
Centralised helpdesk
IBM will set up a centralised helpdesk, roll out pan-India deskside services capability, applications and infrastructure in branches, and deploy service management processes to cover assets, IT security, network, storage, and technology.
The deal is aimed at transforming IIFL's IT infrastructure and establishing a direct linkage between business performance and IT costs. This collaboration is also expected to improve experience for IIFL's end-customers by ensuring higher uptime for the broking platform ‘Traders Terminal', and speedier response and resolution of any technology related issues, an IBM release said.
“With technology being the core of financial services business, we need to ensure high availability of predictable IT services in a highly regulated environment. The Indian financial services market is at an inflection point slated for growth where technology is the best enabler for higher penetration,” Mr Sankarson Banerjee, Chief Technology Officer, IIFL Group, said.
As it is, global service providers such as IBM and HP and Indian companies such as Infosys and TCS have been jostling for a slice of the domestic market. While telecom providers, banks, healthcare and retail firms have been roping in tech vendors to create and support applications or manage their IT infrastructure, there are also large Government opportunities (such as Aadhaar) coming up.
Nasscom estimate
Nasscom estimates that domestic software and services revenue will grow 15-17 per cent during fiscal 2012 to Rs 90,000-92,000 crore.
“The Indian market is interesting and unique. Expectation of services quality is high and most business, who want to outsource, are looking at a rapid technology scale up,” says Mr Vikash Jain, Partner at advisory firm Everest.
But competitive pricing becomes a challenge for vendors, he adds.
“India market is not based on cost arbitrage and hence despite the growth potential, the margins tend to come under pressure,” Mr Sid Pai, Partner and Managing Director, TPI India, said.
moumita@thehindu.co.in