Nokia Corp., the Finland-based global mobile and communication services company, and HCL Technologies, an India-based IT-service provider, have signed an outsourcing deal for five years in the IT infrastructure management area. HCL won this deal in the face of stiff competition from many global companies including IBM.
The duration of the deal has not been made public. Under the terms of the deal, HCL will be responsible for handling Nokia's helpdesk and desktop management outsourcing services operations in 76 countries through its delivery centers in Finland, Poland, China, the U.S. and India. Besides, the provider has also opened a new global delivery center in Finland for this outsourcing engagement.
“Nokia has a very large footprint across the world and a much diversified end user base. Through this engagement we will aim to deliver a predictive, highly optimized and standardized end-user computing experience to its end users. We look forward to collaborating on this critical area to serve Nokia in ways that provide agility, innovation and performance the company needs to support its business agenda,” said Liselotte Hägertz Engstam, Vice President and Head, Nordic Region, HCL Technologies.
As per the deal, HCL will also provide multilingual helpdesk services to the customer in 13 languages. In addition, global account management, workstation packaging, creation and maintenance, workstation security management and onsite support services strengthened by a robust partner eco-system will also be taken care of by the provider.
The Nokia-HCL partnership has another shade to it. As part of its distribution strategy in India, Nokia has recently set up a Joint Venture (JV) with HCL Infosystems to sell mobile value added services and entertainment content directly to consumers in India. The JV is expected to take off by the end of 2009.
HCL is seen to be very aggressive despite the global economic slowdown. The company recently completed the acquisition of the Axon Group to bolster its SAP practice. Recent financial results reveal that in constant currency terms, OND (Oct-Nov-Dec)revenue grew 21.5% year-on-year and 8.1% sequentially. Operating margins for the quarter were flat at 22.5% for the quarter due to the acquisition of Axon Group and weaker performance of its BPO business.
During the quarter, HCL signed new deals with clients including Deutsche Bank, Microsoft, Xerox, Cisco, Viacom and Aegon. It also bagged 20 deals worth $1 billion. Interestingly, three of these deals are in excess of $100 million dollar each and five others in excess of $50 million dollar, as per the CEO of the company.
Under its twin audit system, HCL Technologies has recently appointed KPMG as an independent auditor in addition to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to review the key balance sheet items. At present, PWC is the statutory auditor for the company.
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