TCS Wins Yet Another Deal In Europe As U.S. Deal Making Lags

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. has struck another deal in Europe at a time when dealmaking has slowed to a trickle in the United States—the biggest market for India’s $245-billion IT services industry.

India’s IT bellwether has entered into a strategic partnership with client Phoenix Group’s Standard Life Partners DAC to transform the retirement fund manager’s operating model, according to an exchange filing on Monday.

To start, TCS will transform and move more than 400,000 Standard Life policyholders to a new platform running on TCS BaNCS, its in-house banking, financial services, and insurance platform. The tie-up will also see the IT services firm set up a customer operations centre in Germany and a digital platform for policyholders in Germany and Austria.

In effect, TCS and Phoenix Group want to replicate Diligenta’s successful model in Germany and Austria, and then in other European markets. Diligenta is a U.K.-based subsidiary of an Indian IT firm that specialises in business process services for the life and pensions industry. Its products are also built on the BaNCS platform.

"With TCS’ Digital Platform for Life and Pensions powered by TCS BaNCS, Standard Life International DAC will have a future-ready digital core that enhances agility and will support its growth aspirations in Europe," R Vivekanand, president of BFSI products and platforms at Tata Consultancy Services, said in a statement accompanying the exchange filing. "The same digital omnichannel experiences have made us a market leader in the U.K."

The TCS-Standard Life deal is the outsourcer’s fifth such transaction in Europe so far this year, underscoring the growing importance of the continent in the Indian IT firm’s scheme of things, especially when dealmaking has slowed to a trickle in the US. Less than two weeks ago, TCS agreed to scrap its ten-year, $2-billion deal with U.S.-based insurer Transamerica.

But on June 22, TCS struck a $1.5 billion deal with the U.K.’s National Employment Savings Trust, or NEST, to transform the administrative services of Britain’s biggest workplace pension scheme. It follows the Marks & Spencer deal in April, the Phoenix Group deal in February, and the contract for the Teacher’s Pension Scheme in England and Wales earlier this month.