Infosys Technologies Ltd., a leading global technology and consulting services organization, announced that AstraZeneca has awarded Infosys a five year, multi-million dollar global sourcing deal. AstraZeneca, headquartered in London, is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies with sales of $29.55 billion.

Under the agreement, Infosys will deliver end-to-end application maintenance services to AstraZeneca's global operations in areas such as manufacturing, supply chain, finance, human resources and other corporate functions. The deal is a part of AstraZeneca's transformation initiative to accelerate innovation and bring products to market faster, and will help improve its operational efficiency significantly.

"We chose Infosys as a strategic partner for its understanding of the rapidly shifting dynamics in the pharmaceutical industry," said Richard Williams, Global CIO at AstraZeneca. "The combination of Infosys' outsourcing expertise, technology leadership and proven record in rationalizing and standardizing business process were all contributing factors to our decision. We have confidence in Infosys' ability to deliver a flexible operating model to address our changing business needs more efficiently.

Infosys is delivering the services through a global shared-services model that offers fixed price for outcome-based deliverables, and flexible, unit pricing for managing changes in the base scope of the engagement. This innovative commercial model will allow AstraZeneca greater operational flexibility, lower risk and better spend control. AstraZeneca will now benefit from improved asset utilization, standardized business processes, globally consistent service quality and a predicable cost structure by leveraging Infosys' enterprise frameworks, process and architecture consulting and global delivery model.

AstraZeneca is transforming its operations through multiple phases, with the first across the United Kingdom and the Nordics, and the subsequent phases focusing on the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia. In addition, as part of the transition, AstraZeneca employees in Sweden and the UK will be rebadged to Infosys, thereby strengthening its global delivery network.

Commenting on the deal, Infosys chief executive officer Kris Gopalakrishnan said, "Pharmaceutical companies are launching transformation initiatives to improve R&D productivity, focusing on their core competencies. AstraZeneca is leading this trend, and this programme will help us support its business growth and operational excellence goals. This is another significant step in our long standing partnership with AstraZeneca."