Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

Infosys rides on US rail network

Fakir Chand in Bangalore

Infosys Technologies Ltd, the global IT consulting and software services major, has entered into a strategic alliance with the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company, the second largest rail network in North America, to improve its operations and customer services.

As part of the agreement, which was announced here on Monday, Infosys will establish a co-sourcing model integrating both BNSF and Infosys teams to design, deploy, and manage certain IT systems.

Besides, software development will also be streamlined for these systems and applications, reducing overall IT costs for BNSF. It is expected that the Infosys' dedicated team will grow to over 125 people during the next 18 months.

BSNF vice-president for technology services and COO Greg Fox said on the occasion that the rail network would continue to use new technologies to make it easier for customers to do business with it.

"We need to become more efficient in software development, and we believe Infosys' core competence in building distributed technology teams combined with their knowledge of the transportation industry will enable BNSF to leverage round-the-clock service that will reduce IT costs and meet our objectives in a quality manner," Fox stated.

According to Infosys' business development associate vice-president Prasad Thrikutam, being the IT leader in the transportation industry, BSNF will be able to move up the value chain for strategic and competitive advantages.

"Using both our global business model and proven software development methodologies, we will work with BNSF to build a roadmap of technology projects that will meet their objectives," said Infosys vice-president for delivery systems U B Pravin.

As a subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation, BNSF operates one of the largest rail networks in the US, with 33,500 route miles of track covering 28 states and two Canadian provinces.

BNSF is an industry leader in web-enabling a wide variety of customer transactions.

The railway moves more inter-modal traffic than any other rail system in the World. BSNF is America's largest grain-hauling railroad, and hauls enough coal to generate more than 11 per cent of the electricity produced in the US.

Money

Business News

Tell us what you think of this report