The contract is with BT Digital, and the group hopes to ramp down over 70% of the digital unit’s legacy technology estate.
Harmeen Mehta (pictured), BT’s chief digital and innovation officer, said: “This is yet another transformative move to greatly simplify the BT group legacy estate. It removes complexity and intensifies our strategic focus on delivering the leading-edge tech to meet our customers’ needs and drive growth.”
The annualised savings of £65 million a year is targeted for the end of the 2025 financial year, said BT.
As part of this deal, around 400 BT staff worldwide “will have the opportunity to join” Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), said BT.
The group said: “TCS has an excellent track record of transitioning colleagues with these skills into transformative roles, and they will shape the team that will deliver the acceleration of our legacy decommissioning. In addition, colleagues moving to TCS will gain the opportunity to build long-term sustainable careers in an exciting technology business.”
Mehta, who last year joined BT from Bharti Airtel, where she was chief information officer, said: “This is an exciting outcome for our colleagues. Those who transition will be given incredible opportunities working with a high growth partner on important transformations. Those who remain will have more clarity and focus to build our digital future.”
At TCS, Debashis Ghosh, president of its business transformation group, said the deal was “to give BT the capacity for the accelerated build of its new strategic stack”.
He said: “This is a truly innovative and ground-breaking deal that presents a replicable model for other large enterprises seeking to pivot into the new, while mitigating operational risks.”
BT said that it selected TCS “because it demonstrated it can bring the skills, scale, problem understanding and innovative approach needed to help accelerate BT group on its journey to the future”.
Ghosh said: “We warmly welcome transitioning BT group employees into the TCS family. We are confident they will benefit from the immense learning and growth opportunities we offer, and pursue long, fulfilling careers at TCS.”
