Infosys-BT combine bags award

Infosys Technologies has bagged yet another award. The Field Optimisation Suite jointly developed by BT and Infosys has won the National Outsourcing Association (NOA) award for Innovative Outsourcing Project of the Year 2007. Other finalists included Hindustan Computers Limited and Exigent Technologies.

The NOA Awards recognise and reward innovation and achievement by suppliers, users, and integrated teams within the outsourcing industry.

An Infosys statement said that with the complex task of orchestrating a mobile field force of over 28,000 customer service personnel, BT aimed to improve customer service by enhancing productivity through the automation of its field resource management. BT partnered with Infosys in 2004 to jointly invest and co-create the FOS solution, which would allow BT to enhance time-to-market, realize commercialization and synergies the Intellectual Properties and R&D capabilities of both companies.

It added that BT Research and Infosys’ SETLabs, the companies’ respective R&D wings, worked in collaboration, utilizing their respective intellectual properties. BT provided the core optimization (iOpt), demand and forecasting engines (iForecast) and Infosys introduced its J2EE Enterprise Application Framework “Infosys RADIEN”. The FOS solution was rolled out at the end of 2006 and is now a fully automated resource management system that uses advanced intelligent algorithms to enhance a company’s productivity by accurately forecasting, optimally planning and positioning a large field workforce to adapt to changing demands.

According to Nader Azarmi, head of the BT’s intelligent systems research centre, “FOS is pivotal in ensuring BT has the ability to be flexible enough to bring together its capabilities and capacities in innovative new ways to provide excellent customer service and customer experience. The development of FOS is vital as part of the drive to keep BT ahead of the game as a service company, and the success of FOS is a result of close and innovative partnership with Infosys.”

The NOA award highlighted the benefits the FOS has delivered to BT’s business. BT improved its ability to deliver extraordinary customer service as a result of reduced service times, which has improved customer loyalty through the ability to deal with customer requests rapidly, the statement added.