BT and Infosys awarded NOA's Innovative Outsourcing Project of the Year

By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 25 October 2007, 19:30 IST
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Bangalore: The Field Optimisation Suite jointly developed by BT and Infosys Technologies has won the National Outsourcing Association (NOA) award for Innovative Outsourcing Project of the Year 2007. The NOA Awards recognise and reward innovation and achievement by suppliers, users and integrated teams within the outsourcing industry. BT and Infosys were jointly awarded the industry accolade on October 18, 2007 at the NOA Awards Ceremony in London. Other finalists included Hindustan Computers Limited and Exigent Technologies. With the complex task of orchestrating a mobile field force of over 28,000 customer service personnel, BT aimed to improve customer service by enhancing productivity through the automation of its field resource management. BT partnered with Infosys in 2004 to jointly invest and co-create the FOS solution, which would allow BT to enhance time-to-market, realise commercialisation and synergise the Intellectual Properties and R&D capabilities of both companies. BT Research and Infosys' SETLabs, the companies' respective Research and Development divisions, worked in collaboration, utilising their respective intellectual properties. BT provided the core optimisation, demand and forecasting engines and Infosys introduced its J2EE Enterprise Application Framework 'Infosys RADIEN'. The FOS solution was rolled out at the end of 2006 and is now a fully automated resource management system that uses advanced intelligent algorithms to enhance a company?s productivity by accurately forecasting, optimally planning and positioning a large field workforce to adapt to changing demands. Nader Azarmi, head of the BT's intelligent systems research centre, says, "We are thrilled to have won this award. FOS is pivotal in ensuring BT has the ability to be flexible enough to bring together its capabilities and capacities in innovative new ways to provide excellent customer service and customer experience. The development of FOS is vital as part of the drive to keep BT ahead of the game as a service company, and the success of FOS is a result of close and innovative partnership with Infosys." Subhash Dhar, Senior Vice President & Head of Communications Service Providers Unit, Infosys Technologies said, "The FOS has been a fantastic success for both BT and Infosys. We are pleased the NOA has recognised this. Infosys is leveraging its IP to deliver competitive advantage to our clients." The National Outsourcing Association was founded in the United Kingdom in 1987 by Martyn Hart. The organisation was the first European association to promote effective outsourcing and it is the parent of the federal European outsourcing association. The NOA operates as a not-for-profit trade association and aims to promote best practice in outsourcing, lobbying government and regulators, and provide research and information to companies and managers using outsourcing.