TUI UK to outsource helpdesk work to Wipro

Under the five-year deal signed at the end of 2004, it's support calls are dealt with by a Wipro-run call centre in Chennai.

British travel group TUI UK has reduced annual support costs by 20 per cent after moving its outsourced helpdesk contract from IBM to Wipro in a £5 million deal.

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Under the five-year deal signed at the end of 2004, it's support calls are dealt with by a Wipro-run call centre in Chennai, covering 13,000 desktops and 300 servers in 800 UK shops and offices. "We needed a model that would allow us to adjust the services we received depending on the time of year," said TUI UK's IT Director Keith Newman.

Speaking of off-shoring problems, Newman said, "In the early stages we did have some problems with Wipro staff in terms of accent and we had to go through a fairly rigorous process with them. But the first-time fixes are vastly up on what was in place before and feedback from the business is fairly quiet, which I take as a positive indication. With the previous service provider there was a lot of noise and dissatisfaction."

Newman says the IBM contract used short-term contractors that did not build up knowledge of the holiday firm's business.