Carphone Warehouse signs $200m Indian IT deal

Mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse has signed a $200m five-year deal with Indian IT company Patni.

The deal is an extension of an existing four year relationship between the two companies and covers a range of services including application development and maintenance and systems integration.

Carphone Warehouse CTO, Simon Post, told silicon.com Patni will do offshore support and maintenance and onshore application development.

He said: "It is quite large systems integration stuff and a broad spectrum of services and architectural work."

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♦ SAP and Wipro in Bangalore

Patni is one of Carphone Warehouse's biggest IT suppliers and already works on the company's CRM system and runs some legacy applications offshore.

Post said aside from the obvious cost-benefit of using offshore services the deal also gives his IT department more flexibility in terms of tapping into resources.

He said: "Carphone Warehouse is a business that has changed an enormous amount over the last few years and it is quite difficult for us as an IT department to see what our business will look like in two years. We are trying to build very flexible IT systems that can rapidly change for when Charles Dunstone [Carphone Warehouse CEO] has his next great idea and gives me two days' notice."

The high cost of hiring UK IT contractors is also an issue. "If I need 15 Java people suddenly, I don't need to go to the UK contractor market where I would get nailed," he said.

Post said the deal is primarily about bringing the two companies closer together and Patni will also help Carphone Warehouse develop next-generation systems for its global telecoms and retail operations.