Wipro Infotech inks deal with Qatar Airways

Industry sources suggest the deal could be worth a little less than $50 mn

Wipro Infotech, the India and Middle East IT Business unit of Wipro, today said it has inked a multi-year, multi-million dollar engagement with Qatar Airways.

The partnership is aimed at leveraging competencies of both organisations to create greater value and more efficiency for the global airline, Wipro said in a statement.

Wipro will use its experience in application development and project management and Qatar Airways' aviation systems' expertise to develop new solutions to create competitive advantage for the airline, it added.    

Though the company declined to comment on the deal size, industry sources suggest the deal could be worth a little less than $50 million.    

The Doha-based airline has a fleet of 111 aircraft flying to 118 destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and the Americas.   

The solutions jointly developed within this partnership will enable Qatar Airways and its subsidiaries to pursue their aggressive growth strategies, the statement said.

"Through this agreement, Wipro will work with us to build new aviation IT solutions to meet our business needs in a fast-moving environment," Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said.

Under the new arrangement, a lot of the software development will be carried out by Wipro in South India.

Qatar Airways will be able to tap into Wipro's vast pool of highly technical resources, as well as research and development centres to explore and take advantage of new technological solutions, it said.

In a separate announcement, Wipro Technologies, the IT arm of Wipro, said it has been positioned as a Thought Leadership 'Best-In-Class' in the CEB TowerGroup Outsourcing Technology Analysis Report 2012.

Wipro has been investing in domain and technology led thought leadership and has delivered innovations in areas close to the financial services business such as Customer Experience, Risk & Compliance, Channel Transformation and Analytics, it said.

"Being recognised as a thought leadership in the financial services industry demonstrates our efforts to engage with customers as a business partner, delivering innovative business solutions that go beyond the traditional ambit of an IT services provider," Wipro Technologies SVP and Global Head (Financial Solutions) Soumitro Ghosh said.