The NHS Supply Chain Authority has awarded India-headquartered Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) an IT transformation contract, in another sign that Indian IT providers are winning significant UK public sector business.
The project, which manages the sourcing and supply of medical and other products for NHS trusts, is part of the NHS's plan to achieve its target of saving £1 billion by 2030.
It also represents a major win for TCS, the $30 billion global IT giant, as it continues to grow its UK public sector business and comes on the heels of a major NHS deal with TCS's India-headquartered rival Infosys.
Transforming the NHS supply chain with TCS will involve leveraging the cloud and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as replacing legacy software with a modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) system across the supply chain.
“Ultimately, this will improve our operational efficiency and service delivery as we work to deliver on our commitment to increase operating value by over £1 billion by 2030,” said Matthew Wynne, chief executive of data and technology at NHS Supply Chain. “Working alongside our teams, TCS will help modernize our legacy systems to a more optimized cloud environment. This transition will enhance our resilience, improve user experience and enable us to more quickly respond to changing business and customer needs.”
TCS's ambitions in the UK and in the public sector in particular are clear. Conversation with Computer Weekly Regarding TCS's UK public sector plans last year, Amit Kapoor, who was the company's UK head at the time, said there was “potential, gap and action” with “good synergies”.
The firm, India's largest IT services provider, recently announced the creation of 5,000 jobs in the UK, bringing the workforce to 27,000 – about 5% of the world's total workforce of around 600,000. TCS said the NHS deal will benefit in part from newly created jobs in the UK.
Growing presence
As trade ties between India and the UK grow, Indian IT services companies will be looking to gain more value. These suppliers account for a significant proportion of business in the corporate sector, with most of the UK's largest firms already outsourcing to them, but they are relatively small in the public sector.
Traditionally, there have been concerns that UK jobs will be transferred to India. Because the UK public sector employs a huge number of people, governments have been reluctant to use Indian suppliers for fear of backlash. There were also security issues with public sector data stored in Indian data centers.
But today suppliers have a large UK presence and IT infrastructure. Vinay Singhvi, Head of TCS UK, said: “TCS has been operating in the UK for over 50 years and we have recently committed to recruiting and training over 5,000 new employees in the UK, who will be part of supporting transformational projects like these.”
TCS has won major public sector deals in recent months, and the BBC and Department of Education recently signed IT contracts with it.
Infosys, another Indian IT giant, also recently announced a major victory in the public sector with a 15-year, £1.2 billion contract with the NHS to supply its HR system. To put its significance into perspective, before signing a £1.2 billion deal to create a so-called integrated HR and payroll system for the NHS, Infosys had just £7.45 million in active contracts with the UK public sector.
Since 2012, the Indian IT giant has won just 36 contracts worth a total of £87.2 million, according to Tassell.
