Five IT Vendors Roped in by UK-Based Network Rail for IT Infrastructure

Five IT vendors which also include Accenture, Cognizant and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), were roped in by the UK-based Network Rail for building as well as management of IT infrastructure. The deal is worth 350 million pounds. Network Rail, on 5 June 2013 announced that it signed framework agreements with five main IT vendors.

The agreements are called zero-sum IT solutions and system integrator framework agreements and the five IT vendors with whom these agreements were signed include Tata Consultancy Services, BAE Systems Detica, Accenture, CSC and Cognizant. Network Rail owns as well as operates the railway infrastructure of Britain, which includes stations, tunnels, signals, tracks, bridges as well as level crossings.

These agreements are formulated in order to enable the suppliers to take extra ownership of building, designing and implementing the IT solutions in order to facilitate the Network Rail.
The deal is said to be very significant because it will considerably increase the IT services in particularly European region where the demand is almost flat because of economic uncertainties. European region accounts for around 20-30 percent of the revenue of Indian IT sector.

The major areas which are covered in this agreement include business management, logistics, business information, property, stakeholder relationship, infrastructure lifecycle, service as well as service operations. The agreement also includes other facilities such as citizenships, corporate compliance, access planning as well as business administration.