ING awards $994 million in IT outsourcing contracts
92957
(InfoWorld) - Banking and insurance conglomerate ING Group has finalized contracts worth â¬750 millionÂ ($994 million) with a consortium of companies to provide workspace services for its 53,000 employees in Europe. The contracts with Royal KPN, Getronics, Atos Origin, and AccentureÂ are each for seven years and cover the installation, maintenance, and support of desktop PCs, laptops, printers and telephones, the companies said Thursday. It's the biggest of three outsourcing deals that ING has finalized recently, worth a combined total of â¬1.3 billion. They are part of a cost-cutting plan announced last November that is designed to save the company â¬460 million per year, including â¬230 million from operations and IT. ABN AMRO Bank made a similar moveÂ last year, announcing a plan to outsource its IT operations worldwide in a series of deals worth â¬1.8 billion over five years. The bulk of that contract went to IBM. KPN took the biggest slice of the latest ING contract. It was awarded â¬269 million to provide fixed and mobile communications, call center, LAN (local area networking) and conferencing services for staff in the Netherlands and Belgium. Atos Origin was awarded â¬216 million to design and manage ING's back-end office automation, including e-mail and the active directory, and provide related support for end users. Getronics was awarded â¬213 million for help desk and on-site support for end users, as well as hardware purchasing and asset management. Accenture was awarded â¬52 million to be the "integrator," coordinating services and managing the supplier contracts. When ING announced an initial agreement with the four companies in July it said the contracts would run for five years and be worth about â¬800 million. It estimated that 550 full-time employees would be transferred to the contractors. That number will now be 430, it said Thursday. Of the earlier outsourcing contracts, on Nov. 6 ING finalized a six-year, â¬200 million deal with LogicaCMG for application management, IT maintenance and testing. And on Dec. 6 it signed a seven-year, â¬350 million contract with the U.K.'s Astron to process its banking and insurance documents.
156116
At a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Baltimore City Health Commission, Dr. Peter Beilenson announced receipt of a $994,100 grant from the US Department of Health and Human Servicesâ Substance
322299
ARMONK, N.Y. -- IBM Corp. said Monday it has won a $1.4 billion outsourcing contract from AstraZeneca PLC, a seven-year deal aimed at helping the British pharmaceutical company manage its internal technology operations.
70426
IBM has signed a 7-year, $969 million  contract with British bank Lloyds TSB to supply it with  Internet telephony and data services, The U.S.-based computer  giant said on Monday.
242127
TORONTO (CP) - In one of the largest initial public stock offerings in Canada in the last few years, ING Canada Inc. is aiming to raise $907 million in its IPO after pricing the shares at $26 each.
505106
IBM plans to announce that it will invest $US250 million ($350million) over five years and employ 1000 people in a new business unit to support products and services related to sensor networks and radio identification tags.
703544
THE Manpower Ministry (MOM) has scored a first among government agencies by awarding an outsourcing contract to a private firm that includes the transfer of staff.
153747
Ten former mailroom employees at the Internal Revenue Service who lost their jobs because of outsourcing will receive about $4,000 each in back pay as part of a legal settlement, the National Treasury Employees Union has announced.
603907
The total estimated value of the U.S. government's top 20 IT contracts in fiscal year 2007, which began Oct. 1, is $118 billion, an analyst says.
160150
Computer Sciences Corporation has won a ten-year, $1.35 billion contract to manage telephone and computer networks for Ascension Health, the largest nonprofit health care system in the US
559396
India&#39;s IT services market is forecast to grow to $10.73 billion by 2011, at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 23.2 percent, as outsourcing emerges as a more favored option for companies in India, according to research firm Gartner.As companies are finding it more difficult to hire and retain staff in their IT departments, they are looking at external service providers as an option, hoping to also cut down costs, and better manage growth in the process, Gartner said Tuesday.Indian user companies compete for staff with Indian outsourcing companies and Indian operations of multinational companies, which hire new staff by the thousands each quarter.Staff attrition is however not the key reason why companies are outsourcing, said Arun Gupta, chief technology officer, at Shopper&#39;s Stop, a top Indian retail chain. Driving outsourcing in India is a growing demand for new technologies and applications. Shopper&#39;s Stop has six IT projects in progress with another 12 projects planned for the next six to 12 months.Rather than creating and managing a large IT organization in house, the company is working with service partners to support its 45 IT staff, Gupta said. Some of the functions it outsources are network maintenance, desktop and server maintenance, monitoring enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, and software development, he added.A number of large banks and telecommunications service providers are already outsourcing key IT operations, though the key winners so far have been multinational services companies. Many Indian outsourcing companies had neglected the Indian market in favor of exports, according to a survey last year by Gartner. But that may be changing as the&#160;weakening dollar puts pressure on rupee&#160;realization from exports.IBM,&#160;Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and Wipro together accounted for 26.1 per cent of IT services vendor market share in India last year, according to Gartner. IBM was the top vendor, with 11.2 per cent market share. TCS and Wipro occupy the second and third positions with 10.9 and 4.1 percent market shares, respectively.However, the Indian IT services market is still fragmented, with the majority of the market being serviced by smaller local players that account for close to 40 per cent of the IT services market, according to Gartner.&quot;We have looked at smaller players for very small and specific jobs, but for larger jobs, running into a number of years, and which require a variety of skills, we look at large Indian companies or multinational services companies,&quot; Gupta said.The key segments of the Indian IT services market are hardware maintenance and support, software support, consulting, development and integration, IT management, and process management, Gartner said.
97993
Dutch financial services group ING  said on Wednesday it took an impairment charge of 194 million euros ($285.6 million) in the fourth quarter, but gains from an ABN stake sale helped offset the loss, pushing quarterly net profit up 7.6 percent.
506144
AT&amp;T, the US telecoms group, and a team of subcontractors have won a contract valued at up to $1bn to design, build and manage a secure IP-based global network for the US government
587610
OCTOBER 21, 2004  - IBM has signed a seven-year, $180 million IT outsourcing deal with Short Hills, NJ-based Dun &amp; Bradstreet Corp.
501271
Infotech spending by small and medium businesses (1-999 employees) is on  track to reach a whopping US$95 billion this year across the  Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan, with three key countries--China,  South Korea and Australia--leading the pack.
423131
IBM (Profile, Products, Articles) said Wednesday that it has sewn up outsourcing deals with two Danish companies valued at more than $1 billion over 10 years, reinforcing its strength in Europe.
366992
Financial services firm ING has been identified as the company that plans to yank $5 billion from the hands of Janus Capital Group.