Faritec bags Satyam business

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 03 Dec 2007

Faritec, the JSE-listed IT services company, has signed an exclusive strategic partnership with Indian big-four IT giant Satyam to speed up delivery in the African telecommunications market.

Faritec customer sales group executive Dilley Naidoo says Faritec will leverage off Satyam`s intellectual property, global methodologies and best practices to shorten its own time-to-market.

Naidoo adds the partnership will see Faritec employ South African graduates currently undergoing skills training at a Satyam company university at Hyderabad in central India.

The tie-up will also see Faritec benefit from Satyam`s multimillion-dollar contract to support the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

"Although Faritec is already firmly established in this space - our customer base includes Telkom, MTN, Vodacom and Cell C - our objective is to operate at a higher link in the value chain," Naidoo says.

"We are currently providing infrastructure services and support, and our vision is to add value by contributing to our customers` future direction and strategy. Satyam`s strengths will, therefore, translate directly into benefits for Faritec customers."

80:20 model

Naidoo says the companies are establishing an 80:20 skills transfer model that will see joint projects kick off with 80% Satyam-resources and, as expertise is "transferred to local people, end up with 80% Faritec staff. This is fully in line with Faritec`s own commitment to build South African skills.

"This initiative will see 65 South Africans being trained for one year in India, and these numbers will ramp up to 200 people over a period of 24 months. The one-year course consists of two months` theory followed by 10 months on assignment to Fortune 500 projects - equal to about three years` experience in real terms," he adds.

"Furthermore, Faritec will leverage off Satyam`s extensive selection of competency centres dedicated to industry leaders such as Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and IBM."

2010 boost

Faritec will also share in the 2009 and 2010 soccer largesse, Naidoo says.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter late last month said Satyam will provide the core IT event management system and is FIFA`s service partner for IT accommodation and hospitality. Satyam will also provide IT services to the local organising committee.

Naidoo adds that Faritec will contribute in three areas: IT infrastructure, security and local systems integration.

Satyam, meanwhile, is aggressively building market share in SA and plans to grow year-on-year revenue 75%. The company, which arrived in SA in 2005, now employs more than 120 technical staff at customer locations and has offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Satyam country manager Chittaranjan Jena says the company signed up Faritec "because of its strength, relationships and expertise in the telecoms space.

"From a strategic perspective, the extensive synergies between Satyam and Faritec enable us to complement each other in a joint go-to-market strategy with a single, unified message.

"We are extremely bullish about the relationship with Faritec," Jena adds. "They are a group of highly professional, experienced people with an exemplary track record in handling large accounts in the telecoms and banking market sectors."