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Software exporter Patni Computer Systems has won a five-year IT and back-office contract potentially worth around USD 200 million from US-based health insurance provider Universal American. As part of the deal, Patni will acquire CHCS Services, a subsidiary of Universal American with technologies in the healthcare insurance segment.
The win could be a game changer for Patni helping it qualify to bid for bigger outsourcing contracts and compete with larger`rivals, such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro. This is also the first major deal for an Indian services provider in the healthcare segment after the Obama administration passed the healthcare reform bill.
This represents the largest win in the companys history. This move takes on dual significance for Patni in terms of growing our global life and healthcare insurance business as well as establishing us as a third party administrator, Patni CEO Jeya Kumar said.
The acquisition of CHCS Services establishes it as a TPA in most states in the US and also gives it a 200-person facility in Pensacola, Florida.
This is the second onshore facility Patni has acquired in the past few months. Recently, it had announced the acquisition of another such facility in El Paso, Texas. Over the past few years, scale has become more critical because of the kind of contracts that have been coming up. The reason being if you are a large service provider of around 100,000 people, you can scale up quickly by another 15,000 people as compared to when you are smaller and its a significant percentage of your existing employee strength,says Siddharth A Pai, partner and managing director, TPI India.
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