SCC links arms with Vietnamese software giant

SCC to push FPT's software development and cloud migration services in Europe

Vietnam's largest software company, FPT Software, has entered into an exclusive deal with SCC to help it break into Europe.

SCC will intially focus on pushing FPT's software development and cloud migration services services in the UK, France and Spain.

Mike Swain, managing director for services Europe at SCC, said that the arrangement came about when SCC was launching its new office in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

He explained: "As part of incorporating our business in Ho Chi Minh City, we did a sweep of the market to see who else was available in Vietnam and what they were doing. As part of that we came across FPT and were very impressed with the size and scale of their business.

"They are the biggest software company in Vietnam, with 27,000 people and a legacy of high-quality software development testing services. They had ambitions to move into Europe but no footprint. Clearly we have a huge footprint and a customer base to die for."

FPT Software is part of FPT Corporation and focuses on services including migration to cloud platforms from legacy products, product engineering services and software application development and maintenance.

We have a huge footprint and a customer base to die for

The exclusive agreement covers all of FPT's software development and testing, as well as its cloud migration services. However Swain said that they will also be working together on other opportunities across Europe, which FPT will find and approach SCC to collaborate with.

"They have a whole range of services that are interesting but not where we want to start off," he said. "We could look at their business process outsourcing (BPO) services and other embedded services. That is definitely something we could be interested in."

Swain said FPT chose SCC because of its solid base of customers in Europe.

He added: "The want to grow their business in Europe and they see us as a very strong and well established player there. We haven't done software development from a competitive view before, so they see access to our customer base as a better opportunity than having to start buying offices and salesforces in territories where SCC is extremely dominant. It's a win-win for both parties.

"They are very strong in America and APAC. They have a very strong dominance in that area and they are looking to rebalance their worldwide footprint to address the European marketplace as part of the next stage of their development."

Clive Longbottom, founder of analyst Quocirca, said he thinks there is space for FPT in the European market, especially in regards to its cloud migration services.

He explained: "There is a move away from the monolithic applications like SAP and Oracle to the hybrid cloud [happening in Europe]. A lot of companies in the cloud market, when they say they are doing cloud migration, they are taking something like SAP and sticking it into a hosted environment. It's not really cloud. So this has to be a full modernisation project. If that is their approach then more power to them. They should do well because a lot of the other vendors out there are just looking to move to hosting."