Prudential to review future of IT function

Hundreds of tech staff at the Prudential have been warned that some of their work could be sent offshore as part of a review of the company's IT operations.

Staff in the Prudential's IT department, called Prutech, were briefed by senior managers last week on the future of the company's IT functions and told that offshoring is one of a range of options being considered.

The Prutech IT function employs around 600 tech staff across sites in London, Reading and Craigforth, Stirling.

A spokesman for the Prudential told silicon.com: "We will be undertaking a review of the business to make sure IT is properly structured and aligned. We are reviewing a host of options and one of the things we will be looking at is offshoring some aspects of what Prutech does."

The review is expected to take several months and will cover the future of Prutech over the next "three to five years", the spokesman added.

The Prudential recently announced a major cost-cutting drive aimed at producing cost savings across the group of £150m per year by the end of 2009.

Prudential has already offshored around 1,200 jobs to Mumbai in India since 2002 and trade union Amicus has expressed concern at the latest move.

David Fleming, Amicus national officer, said in a statement: "We fear this may be the tip of the iceberg for Prudential staff in the UK. We are asking the question how committed is the Prudential to its UK staff and its customers?"

But Fleming also welcomed the Prudential's early consultation on future IT offshore outsourcing plans and said it may help reduce or avoid compulsory redundancies.

Just this summer the Prudential signed a £40m contract to outsource its UK life and pensions support to Capita, with some 450 staff in Prudential's customer services and support services operations in Belfast moving across to Capita.