HCL Insurance BPO Services Limited Achieves 75% Reduction In Running Costs Using Micro Focus Technologies

Life and Pensions application migrated from a third party to direct LFS control

NEWBURY, England, 28 April 2009 – Micro Focus® (LSE.MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application management and modernisation solutions, today announced that HCL Insurance BPO Services Limited (earlier Liberata Financial Services Limited) has achieved a 75% reduction in the running costs of a major client’s core Life and Pensions application, CAPSIL. This was achieved using Micro Focus Server and Micro Focus Studio. The project saw HCL Insurance BPO Services migrate the application from a third party mainframe onto an in-house Windows platform, bringing the end-to-end delivery of its application under direct control, reducing batch processing by four times and improving online performance by up to 75%.

In undertaking a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) agreement to run the Life and Pensions application of their client, HCL Insurance BPO Services inherited an older IT infrastructure. This included a third party mainframe to run the client’s Life and Pensions CAPSIL application. With no control over the rising costs imposed by the third party and reliance on an external provider for meeting its contractual obligations, the mainframe no longer represented good value. Since Business Process Outsourcing is a highly competitive business dependent on efficient IT, HCL Insurance BPO Services sought to move the application in-house.

The decision to move off the mainframe was the largest technology migration project HCL Insurance BPO Services had ever undertaken. Micro Focus was chosen to manage the project as its tailored solutions met stringent requirements. Micro Focus Server Enterprise Edition provided a robust, high-performance run-time system for the Windows platform. Micro Focus Studio Enterprise Edition gave the development team a powerful, graphical development environment. It enabled the conversion of core application code without any major changes to the operations and software application. It also greatly reduced risk to the business and eliminated the need for user re-training.

Philip Hogan, Chief Executive of HCL Insurance BPO Services commented: “We identified that having the business-critical Life and Pensions application hosted on a third party mainframe exposed us to a number of risks that could impact our ability to deliver the service to our client successfully. By working with Micro Focus we were able to quickly implement an infrastructure transformation programme to migrate the CAPSIL application to a much more cost-effective Windows platform, bringing the end-to-end service within our control and minimising the risk.”

“The 75% reduction in its customer’s application running costs achieved by HCL Insurance BPO Services is a perfect example of the dramatic savings possible from an innovative modernisation strategy. HCL Insurance BPO Services is a major player in Business Processing Outsourcing, and I am delighted Micro Focus is the chosen partner to deliver significant cost savings and impressive productivity improvements.” concluded David Stephenson, UK Country General Manager, Micro Focus.

About Micro Focus

Micro Focus, a member of the FTSE 250, provides innovative software that allows companies to dramatically improve the business value of their enterprise applications. Micro Focus Enterprise Application Modernisation and Management software enables customers’ business applications to respond rapidly to market changes and embrace modern architectures with reduced cost and risk. For additional information please visit www.microfocus.com

About HCL Technologies Ltd.-BPO Services

HCL Technologies Ltd. - BPO Services (HCL BPO) is one of the early players of Business Process Outsourcing. With several Fortune 500/Fortune Global 500 customers, 200+ processes and over 11,400 professionals operating out of India, UK and USA, HCL BPO has strong domain knowledge and runs quality driven processes. HCL BPO's focus verticals include Telecom, Retail & CPG, Banking & Financial Services, Insurance, Hi-Tech & Manufacturing, and Media, Publishing & Entertainment. This apart, the company services various areas of operations that include Supply Chain Management, Finance & Accounting Services, Knowledge & Legal Services, Customer Relationship Management, Technical Support Services and Data Management Services.

IAOP ranks HCL BPO in the Leaders category of the 2009 Global Outsourcing 100. Hewitt ranks HCL No. 1 Employer in India and Best Employer in Asia in its 2009 Study. The organization ranks 3rd in the Employee Satisfaction Survey 2008 by DQ-IDC. HCL BPO ranks 4th globally in the Business Process Outsourcing vendors survey by Black Book of Outsourcing, 2008. HCL BPO is the largest BPO service provider in Northern Ireland. For more information, please visit www.hclbpo.com  

About HCL Technologies

HCL Technologies is a leading global IT services company, working with clients in the areas that impact and redefine the core of their businesses. Since its inception into the global landscape after its IPO in 1999, HCL focuses on ‘transformational outsourcing’, underlined by innovation and value creation, and offers integrated portfolio of services including software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and R&D services and BPO. HCL leverages its extensive global offshore infrastructure and network of offices in 20 countries to provide holistic, multi-service delivery in key industry verticals including Financial Services, Manufacturing, Aerospace & Defense, Telecom, Retail & CPG, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Media & Entertainment, Travel, Transportation & Logistics, Automotive, Government, Energy & Utilities. HCL takes pride in its philosophy of ‘Employee First’ which empowers our 54,026 transformers to create a real value for the customers. HCL Technologies, along with its subsidiaries, had consolidated revenues of US$ 2.0 billion (Rs. 9,842 crores), as on 31st March 2009. For more information, please visit www.hcltech.com

About HCL Enterprise

HCL is a $5 billion leading Global Technology and IT Enterprise that comprises two companies listed in India – HCL Technologies & HCL Infosystems. The 3-decade-old Enterprise, founded in 1976, is one of India's original IT garage start-ups. Its range of offerings spans Product Engineering, Custom & Package Applications, BPO, IT Infrastructure Services, IT Hardware, Systems Integration, and distribution of ICT products. The HCL team comprises over 59,000 professionals of diverse nationalities, who operate from 20 countries including 360 points of presence in India. HCL has global partnerships with several leading Fortune 1000 firms, including leading IT and Technology firms. For more information, please visit www.hcl.in