Nokia shifts global managed services to India

Nokia is moving its Global Managed Services division to India from Finland.

The new division will be operational from July 2006 said Bosco Novak, senior vice president for services, Networks, Nokia, at Nokia Connection 2006, Singapore.

Addressing the Indian media, Rajeev Suri, senior vice-president, Asia-Pacific, said, “India will play a pivotal role in Nokia's managed services success, not only as a large target market but also from delivery and direction perspective.”

“Ashish Chowdhary, currently the country head for networks in India, will take over as the new global head of managed services by the year-end,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Finnish communication major also announced a managed service contract extension with Hutchison Essar that will see it eventually run 19 of the operators 23 circles. This contract extension of 10 additional circles builds on the initial nine circles, five-year contract awarded by Hutchison Essar to Nokia earlier this year.

“India has a large talent pool, IT and Telecom industry in India is growing at 46 per cent CAGR, India has a better cost structure and government policies favors offshoring,” said Suri reasoning why Nokia is moving its managed services to India.

Speaking from the service provider's perspective, he said average revenue per user (ARPU) is declining in growth markets as well as new markets for service providers.

“Now service providers in emerging markets such as India are addressing rural markets. Also global churn of 26 per cent subscribers makes service providers to spend on new additions. This makes service providers to look for a partner who can manage their networks and roll out new networks for the company,” said Suri.

According to Ashish Chowdhary, “Currently Nokia has 39 managed service contracts in 30 countries. From India we will manage global networks. We will continue to have our current managed services located in other parts of the world.”

Services comprise over 30 per cent of Nokia Network's revenues globally. (Nokia hosted the author in Singapore)

- CyberMedia News