Qantas has awarded Indian outsourcer Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) the lion's share of AU$191 million in contracts for its Applications Services and Transformation (AST) outsourcing program.
The airline handed seven year contracts worth AU$120 million and AU$71 million to TCS and Satyam Computer Services respectively.
Tata said in a statement it would be the lead partner for Qantas' transition phase, and would provide support and maintenance to all of Qantas' key IT applications in airport operations and commercial systems.
The Tata contract is believed to be the biggest Indian outsourcing deal in Australia.
Meanwhile Satyam said it will provide application development and maintenance services for over 150 applications.
The awarding of the contracts follows the airline's 12 month review of its IT systems, which culminated in a decision last month to axe 340 IT jobs. More than 200 of those jobs will be sent to India.
At the time Qantas chief executive officer, Geoff Dixon, said: "There is an increasing concentration of suppliers with the skills we need for the ongoing support of these applications, and these suppliers are achieving a scale and efficiency that airlines like Qantas simply cannot match."
Qantas shortlisted the two Indian vendors earlier this year for the contracts making up its AST program.
The contract work begins this month.
I would like to point out that the headline of your article "Qantas hands Indians AU$191m in contracts" reeks of "stirring".
I have lived and worked in the US and this importance given to the "racial background" of the individuals/companies seems to only be emphasized in Australian journalism.
How does it matter whether the company was Indian, Taiwanese, British or Moroccan? Qantas outsourcing work is newsworthy but to point to out that it "hands Indians $191m in contracts" gives the impression that its a donation of some sort and that there is to be no value provided. Plus the needless mention of the fact that the company is Indian only serves to stir discussion (even more needless).
In the US I have seen such discussion among the less educated states (Southern and Mid-West) but never in the progressive, educated, commercially developed ones.
I would suggest that instead of protectionism, it would be better to invest in educating more people (and ensuring more people complete degrees and post-grad) so that they become more competitive in a capitalist marketplace. That is a long more term strategy for Australia than this bickering.