Thursday, January 19, 2012: Scope International Pvt Ltd, wholly-owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank, is in a hope to save $7 million by trimming its IT vendor base to three or four by the end of March. Jaya Vaidhyanathan, executive vice president and head of Chennai Technology and Strategic Transformation, Global Shared Service Centres (GSSC) said that IT service and vendors have been critically examined and they will continue to handle in-house core IT services that are IP (intellectual property) driven and critical for banking operations. Whereas, the commodity services will be parcelled to couple of big vendors instead of having multiple small vendors. As per Vaidhyanathan, the technology division employees somewhere around 4,500 people out of which nearly 35 percent belonged to the vendors. And, 60 per cent of Standard Chartered's IT needs are met in-house including the bank's core banking solution (CBS), while the balance is outsourced.
She also said that the company is in the last phase of its vendor consolidation activity and after consolidation there will be three or four big vendors. The hiring of new service providers and the firing of smaller players will happen by the end of the first quarter of the current calendar year. The Chennai centre was started about 12 years ago as Standard Chartered's captive back office and it took advantage of the cost arbitrage India offered. But now it has grown to become the fulcrum of bank's IT operations and the biggest GSSC for the bank.
The total annual payout to vendors turns out to be somewhere around $70 million and 10 per cent of that can be saved through vendor consolidation initiative. The company is also planning to phase out some IT activities whose benefit does not justify its cost.
She also said that the company is in the last phase of its vendor consolidation activity and after consolidation there will be three or four big vendors. The hiring of new service providers and the firing of smaller players will happen by the end of the first quarter of the current calendar year. The Chennai centre was started about 12 years ago as Standard Chartered's captive back office and it took advantage of the cost arbitrage India offered. But now it has grown to become the fulcrum of bank's IT operations and the biggest GSSC for the bank.
The total annual payout to vendors turns out to be somewhere around $70 million and 10 per cent of that can be saved through vendor consolidation initiative. The company is also planning to phase out some IT activities whose benefit does not justify its cost.
