India’s Tata to Help Norway’s Telenor to Build a Foothold in Europe

Telenor is one of the biggest foreign mobile phone companies in Asia with operations stretching across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia.

Now, the Norwegian group seems intent on returning the favour by helping Asian companies build a foothold in Europe.

Telenor announced on Wednesday that it was awarding Tata Consultancy Services of India a big, multi-year contract to modernise its information technology systems in Norway.

The deal came seven months after Telenor chose Huawei of China to overhaul its Norwegian mobile network infrastructure ahead of European rivals such as Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks.

Both contracts show the scale of competitive challenge facing the developed world as China and India climb the economic value chain. Everyone understands that Asia is sucking manufacturing from the west. But surely IT service contracts and wireless network overhauls are exactly the kind of sophisticated, added-value business that western companies were supposed to be able to keep hold of? Particularly in an advanced country such as Norway.

If any further proof were needed of the great strides being taken by Chinese and Indian companies, check out how Tata described its Telenor deal:

“This contract underscores TCS’ ability to help global corporations optimise their ‘Run the Business’ cost and channelize those savings to undertake modernisation projects that are delivered with reduced risk and increased certainty,” said A.S. Lakshminarayanan, head of Tata’s European consultancy business.

When an Indian executive shows such a mastery of western corporate gobbledygook, there can be no doubt that emerging market companies have arrived as a force to be reckoned with.

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