IBM, Amul ink 10-year outsourcing deal

BANGALORE, INDIA: Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF, Amul), India’s largest food products marketing organization, announced on Saturday that the Board of GCMMF has approved a deal with IT major IBM to help transform the Information Technology landscape of GCMMF and the Milk Unions to enable and support their accelerated growth plans.

The 10-year strategic outsourcing deal is worth over Rs. 80 crore, said a press release. Under the terms of the deal, IBM would manage and operate IT environment of Amul for the next 10 years.

SAP ERP on IBM technology platform is the chosen vehicle for this transformation.

IBM would also build a state-of-the-art datacenter backed by a disaster recovery center, define the security policy, maintain and manage the entire technology and application landscape.

Commenting on the agreement, B M Vyas, managing director, GCMMF, said, “Amul has deployed Information Technology up to the hilt right from the grass-root level of Village Dairy Cooperative Societies by deploying technologies like Automatic Milk Collection System (AMCS) and also developed several innovative business processes unique to the country and known World-wise as ‘Amul Pattern’.”

He further added that working together of Amul, IBM and SAP would further strengthen the IT processes and ultimately, the entire dairy Industry in the country would gain from new innovative IT platform to be evolved out of this partnership.

The project would begin with the implementation of SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application along with the necessary modules and systems that will enable Amul to increase its operational efficiencies, said the release.

As a result, the cooperative would be able to further improve its supply-chain, strengthen customer focus and achieve many-fold growth.

Sandip Patel, managing partner – Global Business Services, IBM India and South Asia said, “This win is another example of IBM's commitment to help organizations build streamlined, smarter analytical solutions that allow them to become more resilient, and better positioned for growth. We are confident that IBM’s solutions will enable GCMMF to streamline its processes and improve efficiencies."

Vyas added, “This would be one of the most important projects, where Information Technology is going to affect lives of millions of farmers. This agreement is a step in that direction.”