Wipro bags 9-year deal with telecom operator Unitech

Wipro Infotech, the India and Middle-East business arm of Wipro Ltd, said on Tuesday it has been awarded a nine-year IT outsourcing contract by Unitech Wireless. While the companies did not share the exact financial details, the contract is reportedly worth between Rs2,500 crore and Rs2,800 crore.

Wipro Infotech will provide a range of information technology services to Unitech Wireless, the newest telecom services player in India, in which Norwegian telecom group Telenor holds a stake, the company said.

This is the second big contract Wipro has won in India in the recent past. The company had signed a six-year Rs1,182-crore deal with the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) two months ago.

Unitech Wireless has outsourced its IT management to focus better on its core telecom business. Wipro will deploy component-based service delivery platform (SDP) for Unitech Wireless to deliver a wide range of services.

''Unitech Wireless has a customer-centred approach and the business-technology alignment will ensure that subscribers get the latest services,'' said Suresh Vaswani, joint chief executive officer, IT business, at Wipro. Wipro Infotech will be working with Unitech Wireless right from the launch and will take responsibility for key aspects of the service infrastructure.

Unitech Wireless on its part said that it had awarded a ''multi-hundred-million rupee, long term outsourcing contract to Wipro for creating the next generation telecom company''.

Unitech Wireless, with licences to operate in all 22 circles across India, is launching telecommunication services to provide advanced wireless voice, data and ILD/NLD services, a company release said.

Commenting on the association with Wipro, Rohit Chandra, chief operating officer, Unitech Wireless said: "We are launching a greenfield telecom operation and want to create a strong customer proposition for our services based on technology and business processes aligned with IT. We chose Wipro as our partner because among the service providers in this field, we felt they brought a unique combination of domain expertise, market knowledge and a customer-centric approach that allows us to grow together."