HCL Bags US$350M Outsourcing Contract From Reader's Digest

Indian outsourcer HCL Technologies has bagged an outsourcing contract from The Reader's Digest Association.

The contract for about US$350 million involves delivery by HCL of IT infrastructure management, application development and other services, HCL said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange on Monday.

The contract is for a period of seven years, and involves HCL hiring an undisclosed number of employees from Reader's Digest. Some of the new hires will continue to work at Reader's Digest sites, providing on-site services, said a source close to the situation.

HCL will use its global delivery centers in Poland, the U.S. and India, and on-site staff to support the operations of Reader's Digest in 45 countries and 14 languages across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, HCL said.

The company announced in January that it had bagged a five-year contract from Nokia for outsourced desktop management and help desk across 76 countries.

A number of Indian outsourcers are looking at remote infrastructure management as the next big opportunity from their mainstay business in application development and maintenance, analysts said.

Infrastructure services accounted for 15.3 percent of HCL's revenue in the fourth quarter of last year.