Infosys is to develop Sainsbury's finance systems
Supermarket group Sainsbury's has awarded a software development
and support contract to India-based software house Infosys, worth
£28m.
The contract comes on top of an existing outsourcing
relationship between the two companies whereby Infosys controls the
maintenance and development of Sainsbury's distribution and
warehousing system.
Under the deal, the Bangalore supplier will provide maintenance
and development for the supermarket's finance, HR and marketing
systems as part of a five-year deal.
Infosys will open a European proximity development centre (PDC)
in the UK to ensure that on-site support is available. About 30
Infosys staff will be based at the centre, another 30-40 staff will
be based in India and further staff will be on Sainsbury's
site.
Sainsbury's staff working on the systems will be redeployed on
an internal supply chain marketing system.
Bob Hammersley, senior manager of IT Services at Sainsbury's,
said: "We chose Infosys because it offered better service at a
better price. It has a quality culture and we have had a happy
experience of working with it. The fact that that the company is
based in India is irrelevant."
Nevertheless, Hammersley said that there was an advantage to
using India-based staff. "The time difference means that they can
make use of overnight time to deliver," he said.
He expects to save "in the region of millions" by working with
Infosys, but added, "It's not as cheap as people think, as they
have to maintain a UK presence."
Sainsbury's uses PeopleSoft HR system and Oracle Financials
running on IBM mainframes and Unix platforms.
Sainsbury has unveiled a new point of sales system that promises
to significantly cut down staff training times. The supermarket
plans to introduce ICL's Global Store tills to a series of local
convenience stores. The tills may be rolled out into the group's
supermarkets if successful.
ȁdžĈ셀3⼺眯睷攮敬瑣潲楮獣敷步祬挮浯䄯瑲捩敬⽳〲㠰〯⼳㐰㐯㈳㈶愯慮祬楳慳慮慭敤椭獴洭牡湩札浳ⵡ慢捲汥湯瑨mʦ×Č넠ĻĻǕČ胐Ľ㠼ဂ