Energy suppliers buzz with big IT deals

Beverley Head
Wednesday, 29 September 2010 17:09

IT Industry - Deals

It's been a big day for energy company IT with both AGL Energy and Verve Energy announcing multi year, multi million dollar deals with outsourcers.

AGL Energy has dropped IBM as its infrastructure manager and signed a five year $50 million plus deal with Tata Consultancy Services, which comes on the back of a five year $16 million deal for IT support AGL inked with TCS in 2007.

TCS today said that it now had a team of 650 people working on the AGL account, which is one if the company's Australian flagship clients along with Qantas and Woolworths. TCS has partnered with BMC Software on the AGL deal.

West Australia based Verve meanwhile has signed with Fujitsu on a three year deal which has Fujitsu managing Verve's IT service desk.

While Fujitsu has a long local history, TCS, which is one of the 100 companies owned by Indian giant Tata, has grown rapidly in Australia over the last three years. Internationally the company recorded revenues of $US6.3 billion in its last financial year, with 6 per cent coming out of the APAC region (excluding India).

While it does not break out local revenues, Varun Kapur, TCS' general manager for Australia, said the group had grown 40 per cent in each the last three years. It also had 4324 people serving the needs of the local market, with 1314 of those locally based, and the remainder located offshore.

Mr Kapur said TCS was recruiting around 20 people a month in Australia and was experiencing a 'large uptick in demand locally.' This year the company is slated to spend $1 million on local training and development for its staff.