Infotech Lead India: HCL Technologies has signed a $100 million deal with Ford Motor Co. to offer infrastructure management services.
According to a report in Times of India, earlier Ford had outsourced a portion of this contract that involves desk side services to Southfield Michigan-based IT company Stefanini.
A recent Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act (WARN) notice said that Ford would be terminating this contract. As a result, Stefanini will be laying off 107 people who were handling the process for Ford.
For HCL Technologies, infrastructure management services is an over $1 billion business, contributing 28 percent to its topline.
Last year, HCL signed an IT outsourcing deal with Walt Disney for over $200 million. The entertainment firm selected HCL over IBM when the outsourcing deal came up for renewal recently. In 2005, Disney signed IBM to spearhead its IT infrastructure transformation in a seven-year, $730 million deal.
Meanwhile, brokerage firm CLSA has revealed that deals worth over $100 billion are expected to come up for renewal this year, which may throw up an opportunity for Indian IT companies.
CLSA says Indian firms have 5 percent market share in $200 billion infrastructure services segment. The current deal pipeline in infrastructure services is 50-70 percent higher than last year.
According to CLSA, the US healthcare reforms are likely to generate around $30 billion opportunity for global IT companies. The health insurance market in each US state, starting October 2013, will have a public health insurance exchange, where people can choose affordable coverage plans from the health insurance schemes listed in the exchange.
Germany may also offer a chance to Indian software companies, as sectors such as manufacturing, retail, and utilities warm up to the idea of technology outsourcing.
Ambika K
editor@infotechlead.com
