Like many organisations around the world, the British Council suffered large financial losses due to the pandemic. While there has been great progress to rebuild over the last few years, transformation must continue to ensure long term financial sustainability and growth.
In September 2023, the British Council will begin to transform its Professional Services function. This includes Finance, Procurement, Human Resources and Digital & Technology.
The British Council has appointed Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as its Professional Services preferred partner for this transformation. TCS is a global leader in IT services, consulting and business solutions, and has been partnering with many of the world’s largest organisations in their transformation journeys for over 55 years.
TCS has a proven track record of helping businesses transform and succeed, and they will help the British Council achieve its vision of modernising and improving its professional services offer and keeping costs sustainable.
TCS will help the British Council develop more innovative and user-friendly services, enabling the organisation to direct the valued skills and expertise of Professional Services colleagues towards more strategic and rewarding tasks. The partnership will also enable the British Council to focus on improving the quality and efficiency of services, ultimately leading to an enhanced customer experience.
Now the contract has been signed, the British Council will start comprehensive conversations with TCS to define the service transfer approach and plans for those services to be delivered by TCS. The plans will balance the need to move at speed with the need to ensure service continuity.
Andy Williams, Chief Operating Officer said: “It is critical that we continue to transform the British Council to ensure long term financial sustainability and growth.
"We believe that TCS is the right partner to help us achieve our vision of modernising and improving our Professional Services function.
"We are grateful to the dedication and hard work of our colleagues in Professional Services who continue to deliver essential support to the whole organisation during this period of change.”
Amit Kapur, Country Head, TCS UK and Ireland said: “We are pleased to be selected by the British Council to help them transform their Professional Services function.
"We look forward to leveraging our contextual knowledge on the back of our investment in talent, technology expertise along with our partner ecosystem to support this transformation.
"We have been partnering with leading organisations in the UK and this partnership will further strengthen TCS’ position for helping businesses transform core functions and enhance customer experience.”