JP Morgan Asset Management Extends Outsourced Services Contract With HCL

To provide continuity and certainty around life and pensions administration for Save & Prosper
HCL IBS, part of HCL Technologies (HCL), has extended its contract with JP Morgan Asset Management to deliver life and pension administration services for Save & Prosper, the global asset management arm of JP Morgan Chase & Co.
JP Morgan has claimed that the contract extension will reduce cost and deliver service enhancements to improve the policyholder experience. HCL will continue to provide an end-to-end service solution to enhance policy administration, finance, actuarial and call center services. The new contract services 185,000 policies and provides additional costs savings to JP Morgan Asset Management over the contract's lifetime in the order of GBP 8.5mn.
Peter Ball, CEO of Save & Prosper, said: "JP Morgan Asset Management has long enjoyed a strong relationship with HCL and we are happy that our partnership has been extended. I am confident that HCL will continue to provide great service and value to our policyholders."
Stephen White, COO of HCL IBS said: "We are delighted that JP Morgan Asset Management has reconfirmed the value it places in our partnership through this contract extension. We look forward to adding further value through the introduction of wider HCL service capabilities to help the company achieve its business needs. HCL's governance model means that strategic needs are given as much focus as operational delivery. Our platform has the capability to deliver cost certainty and provide those benefits on long term contracts.
"We have developed a growing onshore/offshore business model, which will enable further capability developments and efficiency improvements. We are keen to grow our Life and Pensions business, in both the open and closed book space, and this announcement demonstrates we provide a compelling and competitive proposition in this market."
David Mitchell, SVP of IT research at analyst firm Ovum, said: "Outsourcing of specific business functions or business areas is most effective when the outsourcing provider has domain specific capabilities. The recent life and pensions administration contract with HCL for Save & Prosper with JP Morgan is based on the HCL industry specific expertise in this sector, offering JP Morgan an enhanced service for their customers and staff while still being very cost effective."
HCL Technologies offers integrated portfolio of services including software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and R&D services and BPO.

Infosys Opens Development Centre in Brazil

Infosys Technologies has opened its wholly owned Brazilian subsidiary - Infosys Tecnologia Do Brasil Ltda. The first development centre of this subsidiary is in Belo Horizonte, the third largest metropolitan area in Brazil after Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, with a mature Information Technology (IT) services and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) ecosystem and an established talent pipeline.

This new centre will offer Infosys' complete suite of services to Infosys' Brazilian clients and Brazilian subsidiaries of global customers.
Infosys has been present in the Latin American market since the creation of the company's Mexican subsidiary - Infosys Technologies S. De R.L. De CV, in 2007. The center in Belo Horizonte is Infosys' third development center in Latin America following the recent opening of Infosys' second center in Monterrey, Mexico.

The company has been investing and strengthening its position in Latin America to expand its footprint in the region and also to leverage the near shore advantage of similar time zones for global clients. The two development centers in Mexico service 32 clients and employ 357 professionals.

CEO and MD of Infosys, S Gopalakrishnan said, "Brazil is the largest IT and BPO services market in Latin America, with the eighth highest IT and BPO services spend in the world. The growth forecasts for the IT-BPO sector in Brazil have remained high despite the global economic crisis. Along with our centres in Mexico, our presence here will strengthen our ability to address both Spanish and Portuguese speaking markets in Latin America, driving our business growth in the region."

Infosys has appointed Puneet Gill as the head of this development centre. Gill has been with Infosys since 2003 and headed BPO operations in Mexico earlier.

Dheeshjith V G, head of new markets and services, Infosys said, "We are fully committed to Brazil and will be leveraging our presence there to offer our full range of IT Consulting, IT services and BPO for our global and Brazilian clients across all industries including banking, financial services, insurance, manufacturing, retail, distribution, telecom, energy, resources and other industries."

Infosys BPO to hire 2,000 more by fiscal-end

NEW DELHI: Infosys BPO, the back-office unit of Infosys Technologies, on Monday said it would hire 1,500-2,000 people by the end of the current fiscal.

“We plan to hire 2,000 people in the next four-five months or by the end of this fiscal. Currently we are 16,000 people in India,'' the Infosys BPO CEO, Mr Amitabh Chaudhry, told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

The 300-million Infosys subsidiary recently signed an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh Government to set up rural BPO centres in 22 districts of the State.

The company gets significant part of its business from North America and Europe. To bag more clients, it is said to be looking at aligning with Finacle, the banking solution business of its parent.

Infosys BPO has eight delivery centres across the globe, including in Mexico, but it did not have a centre in the US so far. The company registered revenues of $71.3 million with a net profit of $16.3 million for the September quarter. – PTI