Under the terms of the deal, Patni will provide a range of services, including application development and maintenance, consulting, and systems integration. The company will also be involved in developing systems for Carphone’s telecoms and retail operations.
We have worked in a relatively ad hoc way with Patni over the last three or four years, Simon Post, CTO of Carphone, told Computer Business Review. This deal cements our relationship… Patni employees are already fully embedded in the Carphone Warehouse organization. Most people wouldn’t know that the person working next to them is a Patni employee. From that perspective, there’s not a lot new about this deal.
Post said Carphone has outsourcing relationships with a number of other vendors including Patni’s Indian rival Tata Consultancy Services, and said the company would continue to pursue a multi-vendor approach for the foreseeable future.
Neeraj Gupta, executive vice-president at Patni with responsibility for the company’s telecoms business unit, confirmed that the contract win was one of the largest in Patni’s history. It is also the largest relationship that crosses all of our capabilities, including applications and consulting, he said.
Post said Carphone enjoys its position as one of Patni’s larger clients. We are a relatively big fish in Patni’s pond, he said, and we get a good response from them as a result.
Telecoms is one of the larger vertical markets for Patni, with 14.1% of the company’s sales in its most recent fiscal quarter coming from the industry. In July, Patni acquired telecoms consulting company Logan-Orviss International, a provider with centers in the UK, France, Germany, Norway, Russia, and Israel.
