FPT Strengthens South Korea Footprint with Strategic Partnership and Investment in Blueward

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FPT Strengthens South Korea Footprint with Strategic Partnership and Investment in Blueward

2025-12-08 09:00 Last Updated At：15:04

HANOI, Vietnam--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 7, 2025--

Global IT corporation FPT and Blueward, formerly ISTN and South Korea’s leading independent SAP consulting and IT services firm, specializing in SAP ERP, announced the signing of a Strategic Investment Agreement and a Master Service Agreement. Through its subsidiary in South Korea, FPT will make a strategic investment to secure up to a 10% equity stake in Blueward. The investment is planned to be completed before Blueward’s IPO in 2028. Both sides aim to strengthen SAP ERP delivery capabilities, deepen consulting expertise, and enhance competitiveness in the Korean enterprise market.

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FPT and Blueward will leverage complementary strengths to support large-scale digital transformation programs for South Korea’s leading enterprises. Blueward will contribute deep SAP ERP consulting expertise, established client relationships, and extensive knowledge of the enterprise landscape, while FPT will augment this foundation with nearly 2,000 SAP experts and extensive international experience leading large-scale digital and business transformation initiatives. Together, they will implement co-selling and co-delivery models designed to accelerate execution, optimize costs and enhance service quality for enterprise customers.

The partnership will enable FPT to expand its strategic SAP ERP projects and services across consulting, S/4HANA implementation, SAP BTP extensions, SAP AI use cases, and application management. Beyond SAP ERP, the collaboration will extend into finance and capital markets, leveraging Blueward’s financial consulting expertise and FPT’s capabilities in data, AI, and cloud to deliver integrated solutions for brokerage operations, clearing and settlement, risk management, market surveillance, IFRS reporting, and SAP FI/CO integration.

“Across South Korea and the broader APAC region, demand for integrated SAP solutions continues to rise, especially as more companies accelerate their migration to the next-generation ERP platform, SAP S/4HANA. Leveraging Blueward’s deep local expertise and FPT’s global capabilities in SAP and large-scale digital transformation, we can accompany enterprises in building more agile, intelligent, and competitive operations for the future,” said Nguyen Khai Hoan, FPT Software Senior Executive Vice President, FPT Corporation.

Blueward CEO Kim Jong-do stated: "This investment will provide optimal cost efficiency and trust to our customers, while also marking a significant milestone in Blueward’s leap forward as an AI and cloud-native company. Combining FPT's global resources with our on-site expertise, we will innovate the development paradigm and demonstrate our strong commitment to supporting our customers to secure a competitive edge in the new digital environment."

With over two decades of partnership with SAP, FPT has become a key Regional Strategic Partner in APJ, recognized for its excellence in digital transformation and regional delivery. In South Korea, FPT has built a strong presence over nearly a decade, delivering end-to-end SAP business services including SAP Cloud Transformation, SAP AI and ERP offerings through a workforce of more than 300 local professionals and over 2,500 offshore engineers.

About FPT

FPT Corporation (FPT) is a globally leading technology and IT services provider headquartered in Vietnam and operates in three core sectors: Technology, Telecommunications, and Education. Over more than three decades, FPT has consistently delivered impactful solutions to millions of individuals and tens of thousands of organizations worldwide. As an AI-first company, FPT is committed to elevating Vietnam’s position on the global tech map and delivering world-class AI-enabled solutions for global enterprises. FPT focuses on three critical transformations: Digital Transformation, Intelligence Transformation, and Green Transformation. In 2024, FPT reported a total revenue of USD 2.47 billion and a workforce of over 54,000 employees across its core businesses. For more information about FPT's global IT services, please visit https://fptsoftware.com.

About Blueward

Blueward, formerly ISTN, is South Korea’s leading independent SAP consulting and IT services company, delivering end-to-end SAP ERP capabilities across consulting, implementation, cloud transformation, solution delivery, and application management. With more than 15 years of continuous growth, the company combines deep SAP expertise with advanced cloud and AI capabilities to support digital transformation for major enterprises. Blueward also operates a dedicated financial and capital-markets technology division, providing digital finance solutions such as STO and ATS, along with specialized financial IT consulting services. The company continues to expand its vision as an AI- and cloud-native enterprise, offering SAP-linked solutions, AI-driven platforms, and integrated digital transformation services that help customers build intelligent, resilient, and future-ready operations.

Iran's supreme leader resolves to keep fighting in his first public remarks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s secretive new leader issued his first public statements Thursday, resolving to keep fighting, promising more pain for Gulf Arab states and threatening to open “other fronts” in a war that has already disrupted world energy supplies, the global economy and international travel.

The hard-line stance revealed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country's attacks were creating conditions for the Iranian population to topple the government.

“It is in your hands,” Netanyahu said at a news conference, addressing the Iranian people. “We are creating the optimal conditions for the fall of the regime.”

Since the start of the war, U.S. and Israeli strikes have targeted security checkpoints in Iran to undermine the government’s ability to suppress dissent, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, the U.S-based independent monitoring group known as ACLED.

Intense airstrikes hit early Friday around Iran’s capital, Tehran, as well as outlying areas. It was not immediately clear what had been targeted.

Netanyahu denounced Khamenei as a “puppet of the Revolutionary Guards."

Khamenei is close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and is widely seen as even less compromising than his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei said in a statement read by a state TV news anchor that he was keeping a “file of revenge.” He did not appear on camera and has not been seen since his father and wife were killed in the war’s opening salvo, which also wounded him, according to an Iranian ambassador.

The war continued to escalate on its 13th day as oil prices spiraled up again to $100 per barrel, and stocks sank worldwide over fears that the conflict could drag on longer than hoped.

To relieve the surge in prices, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was further easing sanctions on Russian oil by granting a license that authorizes the delivery and sale of some Russian crude oil and petroleum products for the next month.

Trump signaled earlier this week that he would take more action to address the squeeze on oil flows. The move follows the administration’s decision to grant temporary permission for India to buy Russian oil.

The new exemption applies only to Russian oil already at sea. Last week, analysts estimated there were about 125 million barrels loaded on tankers. To put that in perspective, about 20 million barrels of oil per day usually pass through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the International Energy Agency.

Iran has made clear it plans to keep up attacks on energy infrastructure across the region and use the effective closure of the strait as leverage against the United States and Israel. A fifth of the world’s traded oil flows through the waterway leading from the Persian Gulf toward the Indian Ocean.

At a news conference Thursday, Iran’s ambassador to Tunisia, Mir Masoud Hosseinian, said Iranian naval forces “have established full control” over the strait and “carried out precise strikes in response to attacks on our oil infrastructure.”

“Global energy security is contingent on respect for Iran’s sovereignty,” he said.

The pinch was being felt worldwide. South Korea reinstated government-set caps on oil prices for the first time in three decades as it sought to calm soaring fuel costs. The two-week caps, which took effect Friday, set maximum prices for petroleum products supplied by refiners to gas stations and other businesses.

Hosseinian told The Associated Press the new supreme leader was wounded in the attack on his family’s home, but “it is not serious.” The hope is he will attend the massive, state-organized Eid prayer next week that his father traditionally led. However, Khamenei remains a target for the Israelis, who have vowed to kill him.

Hosseinian said Iran’s strikes on Gulf nations have been strategic. “Even when we targeted hotels, we had precise information that they were hosting American and Israeli soldiers,” he said.

Khamenei called on Gulf Arabs to “shut down” U.S. bases in the region, saying protection promised by Washington was “nothing more than a lie.”

He also said Iran has studied “opening other fronts in which the enemy has little experience and would be highly vulnerable” if the war continues. He did not elaborate, but Iran has been linked to previous attacks on U.S., Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.

Attacks on Gulf states continued Friday with Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry saying its air defenses downed more than three dozen drones headed toward the kingdom’s Eastern Province over the span of a few hours, marking an unusually large barrage.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in a social media post Thursday that ensuring Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon was a higher priority than soaring oil prices.

Hours later, Netanyahu announced Israeli attacks had killed a top Iranian nuclear scientist and hit others but gave few details.

Israel said earlier it struck a nuclear facility in Iran in recent days that it had destroyed with an airstrike in October 2024. Earlier this year, satellite photos raised concerns that Iran was working to restore the facility.

The U.S. military said American forces have now struck more than 6,000 targets since the operation against Iran began, including more than 30 minelaying vessels.

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said a French soldier was killed in an attack targeting Irbil in Iraq's northern Kurdish region. France earlier said six soldiers had been hurt in a drone strike in Irbil, where French troops are deployed as part of a multinational counterterrorism mission supporting Iraqi forces in their fight against Islamic State militants.

In the same region, British officials said several U.S. personnel suffered minor injuries Wednesday when drone strikes hit a base in Irbil that houses both British and American troops.

And on Thursday in western Iraq, rescue efforts were underway after an American military refueling plane went down. U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said in a statement that two aircraft were involved, including one that landed safely, and that the cause was not related to friendly or hostile fire.

Israeli warplanes pummeled Lebanon, targeting even the busy heart of Beirut, in response to missiles from Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters launched into Israel. One strike hit in a neighborhood that is close to Lebanon’s parliament, United Nations offices and international embassies.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said forces were targeting a “facility affiliated with Hezbollah.”

An Israeli strike hit in the vicinity of Lebanon’s only public university, killing a professor and the director of the science faculty at the campus in Hadath, on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Israeli strikes also killed 15 other people, including five children, in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. An AP photographer saw several buildings flattened in one village where rescue workers searched through the rubble.

Ben Mbarek reported from Tunis, Tunisia. El Deeb reported from Beirut. Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers from around the world contributed to this report.