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Mumbai, May 13 Tata Consultancy Services has bagged a five-year IT outsourcing deal with Volkswagen (VW) Group UK which for the first time will use a mixture of onshore and offshore services for managing its software infrastructure.

As part of this engagement, TCS will manage the corporate IT systems, data centres and applications of VW, Mr A. S. Lakshminarayanan, Vice-President and Head of Europe, TCS, told Business Line from London.

“Due to the economic downturn, facilities of auto companies in the UK are not running at full capacity. Hence they are keen to reduce variable operational costs as much as possible. Partnering with companies such as TCS helps them in doing that in addition to improving work efficiency,” he said. TCS will help in virtualisation of VW`s servers and consolidate them on a single platform, added Mr Lakshminarayanan. However, neither company disclosed the overall deal size or the number of people to be deployed for the engagement.

TCS’s services will cut across the VW group’s operations including brands such as Audi, SEAT, Škoda, Volkswagen Passenger Cars and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. Volkswagen Group UK Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of German carmaker, Volkswagen AG, which produces one in every six new cars sold in the UK, according to a press release from TCS.

The global auto industry is facing a huge crisis because of a drastic fall in sales volume due to the ongoing recession. In spite of the downturn, companies still need IT services to manage their day-to-day operations, said Mr Lakshminarayanan.

“Moreover, the positive thing is that the UK Government is giving incentives for consumers to buy cars,” he added.

TCS has several high profile automobile customers such as Ducati and Ferrari in Europe. The company’s scrip was down 2.36 per cent and closed at Rs 622.5 on the BSE.

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