Server: Netscape-Commerce/1.12 Date: Thursday, 20-Nov-97 22:18:17 GMT Last-modified: Monday, 17-Nov-97 11:41:11 GMT Content-length: 6058 Content-type: text/html
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CAP GEMINI TO RUN BRITISH STEEL'S COMPUTER SERVICES
12th November 1997British Steel is to outsource the bulk of its Company-wide computer services for the next ten years in an agreement signed today with Cap Gemini worth around £400 million.
The arrangement is expected to commence in March 1998 and run until February 2007 and will involve the transfer to Cap Gemini of more than 600 British Steel information technology (IT) staff at sites throughout Britain. It covers the following services: operational, infrastructure, applications support and development, helpdesk and consultancy. Process control at works sites is excluded.
British Steel expects today's deal to enable it to find imaginative ways to extend and expand the use of IT to improve business performance. The Company is looking for IT to play a valuable role not just in supporting a slimmer, highly-trained, highly productive team-based workforce but also in delivering new levels of customer service and integrating British Steel into customers' supply chains. Such integration of systems has the potential to strengthen its competitive advantage.
Dr Jeff Edington, British Steel's Executive Director, Technology said:
"Working with Cap Gemini will enable us to accelerate improvements in business performance by taking full advantage of the latest developments in IT and utilising the widest range of IT skills and techniques."
Cap Gemini will take over British Steel's three major data centres at Port Talbot, Teesside (both based on IBM mainframe technology), and Wednesbury (based on ICL mainframes), and will be responsible for supporting over 7000 desktop terminals throughout British Steel in a Distributed Computing Services (DCS) operation. Cap Gemini will also take full responsibility for the development of, and support for, British Steel systems including manufacturing, distribution, finance, sales, marketing and human resources.
Discussions will now take place with British Steel's IT staff and their representatives, continuing the consultation and personal counselling which has taken place during the evaluation.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
- The main British Steel sites included in the agreement are: Port Talbot; Llanwern; Shotton; Trostre; Ebbw Vale; Teesside; Scunthorpe; Corby; Workington; Wednesbury; Blackburn; Dalzell (Motherwell); Rotherham; Executive Office, London and the Business London Office.
- Cap Gemini Group is the largest European computer services and business consultancy company. Founded over 30 years ago, it employs around 27,000 people in 16 European countries, the USA and the Far East, and had 1996 revenues of $2.9 billion. In the UK, Cap Gemini has main offices in London, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Rotherham, Manchester and Woking, with a network of other offices and data centres.
- British Steel plc is the largest steel producer in Europe and the third largest in the world with an annual output of over 16 million tonnes and a turnover in excess of £7,000 million. It is Britain's fourth largest exporter of manufactured goods and employs 50,000 people worldwide - 20 per cent of them outside the UK.
- For further information please contact:
Mike Hitchcock/Jim Johnson, British Steel, tel: 0171 820 7411/7410.
Roy Westerman/Denise Colgan, Cap Gemini, tel: 0171 434 8234/8615.
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