HCL Tech bags Rs 393-cr IT contract from NIC

MUMBAI: HCL Technologies has won a whopping Rs 393-crore contract from National Insurance Company (NIC) in a deal keenly contested by top Indian IT companies as well as multinationals. 

The contract is a seven-year partnership that involves implementing a slew of software applications and maintaining them, besides supporting the insurer’s IT infrastructure. 

HCL said it was the largest IT deal in financial year 2009 in the domestic market and also one of the largest engagements in the insurance sector. NIC has over 1,000 branches and 10,000 employees using IT in these branches. 

For HCL, the bulk of the revenue will come from deciding which applications are best suited for the insurance company, designing the data centre where these applications will be hosted, and implementing the software and networking for users, HCL senior vice-president Kiran Bhagwanani said. 

HCL will implement a core insurance solution similar to the one banks currently use for the insurance provider. Apart from the solution, it will also implement 18 other applications for verticals like customer relationship managements, human resources and business analytics. 

"NIC was looking for a strategic IT company that could partner them for seven years, roll out the applications as well as operate them," Mr Bhagwanani said, terming it a transformational project for all the insurer's business processes. The design and implementation is expected to take 18 months after which the project will go into the maintenance phase, 
wherein HCL will operate and run the applications. 

India is one of the few markets that is still growing for global IT providers. In 2008, the Indian IT market grew by 13%, according to research firm Gartner’s latest data. 

Government and public sector enterprises are typically one of the largest IT spenders in the country. Telecom, financial services and retail are the other big spenders, but the global slowdown has impacted spends in some of them. Government spending is relatively less impacted by the recession as the government usually aims to compensate for the reduced spending by private companies.

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