World Bank bars Wipro, Megasoft

The World Bank has disclosed that apart from Satyam Computer Services, it has barred two other Indian outsourcing firms from doing work for the bank, states LiveMint.

It has barred Wipro and Megasoft for “providing improper benefits to bank staff” in the first instance, and “participating in a joint venture with bank staff while also conducting business with the bank” in the second.

“Following [the Satyam] incident, the bank took a policy decision, in the interest of fairness and transparency, to disclose the names of all affected vendors who have been barred through our corporate procurement programme,” said Carl Hanlon, the bank's Washington, DC-based spokesperson.

While there are opportunities in outsourcing and offshoring to businesses under pressure to cut costs and stretch slimmed-down budgets, that opportunity is accompanied by an additional level of complexity, said a PricewaterhouseCoopers executive, according to Network World.

In the IT world especially, outsourcing and offshoring models have become extremely mature with time, said Madhav Murti, a VP specialising in offshoring and outsourcing advisory services with the Toronto-based professional services firm.

But in tough economic times, he said, new complexities like service provider viability must be considered when implementing these models because "now the level of risk has gone up so much".

Kale Consultants, a solutions provider to the airline, logistics and travel industry, has entered into a multi-year outsourcing contract with Wataniya Airways, Kuwait's new full service luxury airline, reports Albawaba.

As part of the deal, Kale will deliver complete outsourced revenue accounting and passenger audit services from its delivery centre.

Kale will put into service its passenger revenue accounting solution, Revera, as the backbone of this platform-based BPO deal. Kale will provide services to the airlines from its managed processing services centres in India.