subject: More And More Companies Jump On The Outsourcing Bandwagon [print this page] With outsourcing really starting to take off, were seeing more and more companies jumping on the outsourcing bandwagon. From smaller companies in need of their work being completed for a more reasonable price than can be found on the high street, to larger companies with restricted budgets, everyone can benefit from outsourcing.
Most recently making the most of outsourcing is the company G4S, who have now chosen to outsource their IT services to Fujitsu. According to Computer Weekly, G4S is lining up a series of acquisitions over the coming years and believes the seven-year, 3.9m deal, which will also see Fujitsu provide cloud computing services, will give the company greater flexibility, whilst also boosting efficiency.
IT is a core enabler for our merger and acquisition activity across the group, so being able to scale our IT levels up and down to meet our changing requirements is essential, said G4S Cash Solutions UK IT director Declan Hunt.
Fujitsu will provide support for three of G4S UK business units, with staff migrated to Windows 7 and Citrix desktop software, serving 3,500 computers and 10,500 e-mail clients. Its anticipated that the move will be completed by March next year, at the latest.
The announcement came after pub group Mitchells & Butlers, owner of well-known brands such as ONeills and All Bar One, revealed in its latest trading report that it would continue looking for ways to reduce its expenditure on IT services.
In its latest trading update, Mitchells & Butler confirmed that its aiming to boost efficiency, and suggested it felt further savings could be made on its IT spend. The company commenced a review of its external expenditure earlier this year and replaced IBM with Fujitsu as its primary IT vendor.
We continue to drive increases in productivity and cost effectiveness and have identified a number of initiatives to offset inflationary cost headwinds, the company stated. These initiatives are in areas such as menu improvements; drinks sales initiatives; gross margin management; IT costs; and organisation changes.
Mitchells & Butler acknowledged that the consumer environment remains challenging, with further pressure anticipated from rising energy, fuel and duty costs. However, interim chief executive Jeremy Blood described recent results as robust, with like-for-like sales up for the 34th consecutive quarter.
Earlier in the month, travel agent Thomas Cook also revealed it had streamlined a number of its IT operations, by appointing a single third-party firm to provide them, which further illustrates just how popular the whole process of outsourcing is becoming. It also goes some way to illustrating the extent to which some companies are strapped for cash in the UK.
