The current trend in information technology is shifting towards insourcing from outsourcing, AstraZeneca Chief Information Officer David Smoley said here on Tuesday.
The British-Swedish pharma major is planning to substantially reduce the amount of outsourcing work it gives to third party firms, and has set up its Global Technology Centre (GTC) in Chennai.
At present, the firm outsources 70 per cent of its IT work, and aims to bring it down to 30 per cent in three years.
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The company’s global IT budget is roughly $1.3 billion, which it aims to halve in the coming years.
AstraZeneca works with eight vendors, out of those HCL Technologies mainly handles infrastructure, while application development and maintenance is spread between Cognizant, Infosys and Accenture.
“Twenty years ago it would have made sense to outsource work as a process needed 200-300 people. But it is no longer the case with the advent of mobile and cloud technologies,” Mr. Smoley said. “The third parties tend to focus on their own profit margin and not of AstraZeneca. And you end up dealing with too many people and delaying the drug delivery process.”
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He noted that companies such as General Motors had started to move their information technology work in-house three years ago.
The Chennai captive unit of AstraZeneca would support its 51,500 employees worldwide.
The GTC here will initially have 60 employees, and it would be increased to about 300 people in first year of operation.
Two other centres will come up in California and Eastern Europe. Some of the work that will be done will include SAP, infrastructure operations (network monitoring), application development and maintenance, and cloud and mobile.
“We want to gain control from an IT operations perspective, which will improve efficiency,” Mr. Somley said.