Wipro bags outsourcing deal from Aviva

Wipro Technologies has announced a major customer acquisition in the insurance space. It has entered into a wide-ranging software outsourcing agreement with Aviva Plc, the largest insurance company in UK and the seventh largest in the world. Billing will start from the current quarter.

Because of obvious sensitivities in the west over offshoring, Wipro was unwilling to go into the way the engagement is likely to progress.

Soumitra Ghosh, vice president, insurance solutions, agreed that "Aviva will be one of our most strategic clients - not just for the insurance division but Wipro overall both in terms of scale and quality of work."

The outsourcing deal will be across the spectrum of Wipro capabilities like applications development, maintenance, package implementation and infrastructure management.

The deal follows the classical offshore development model, and Wipro has already opened an offshore development centre for Aviva.

How work for it will ramp up will depend on how Wipro and TCS, the other Indian vendor chosen, are able to handle their respective tasks.

Currently, the engagement will be equally shared by the two vendors over a similar range of tasks.

Wipro Technologies has over 1,200 people working in the insurance vertical and extensively engages domain specialists to serve over a dozen global customers.