The Swedish postal service, Posten, aims to cuts its IT
spend by 20% through a six-year, €220m (£160m) "on demand" IT
services outsourcing deal with IBM. Pricing is
based on the number of servers and applications Posten uses. If the
number of servers and applications it uses drops it will pay IBM
less.
Posten’s chief information officer Mats Engstrand said this was
critical to its decision to outsource as the organisation foresees
a reduction in its business and a consolidation in its IT
infrastructure.
“We don’t
regard IT as a core focus and we see clear and significant savings
in outsourcing our IT infrastructure,” said Engstrand. “We expect
to save in the region of 15-20% of our ongoing IT costs.”
IBM will
manage Posten's IT and telephony infrastructure, including its
three datacentres, provide enterprise computer management and
helpdesks and oversee the telephony network, including call centres
and mobile phones.
Posten has
around 600 existing servers running 200 applications in 13
locations in Sweden.
The move
follows the recent on demand deal IBM signed with Electrolux to
manage its desktops and local area networks. Electrolux is paying
IBM on a per-user basis.
John
Mackie, a senior consultant at Morgan Chambers, said IBM is leading
the way in on demand outsourcing. “They have the scale to do this
better than others,” he said.
However,
Mackie warned that IBM is making “some pretty bold claims” in its
on demand deals on the back of its projected growth plans. Clients
need to ensure they are protected if that growth fails to
materialise, he said.
“It could
stop the client getting the benefits they anticipated,” said
Mackie. “You need to ensure that governance is in place so it
remains a good deal regardless of what happens in the market.”
Although
on demand deals can save clients money per unit, users could end up
paying more of they overestimate how many units they need, Mackie
added.
Engstrand
acknowledged that Posten was worried about paying more for its IT
by outsourcing.
“To some
extent this was a concern of ours but we believe we’ve been quite
careful and done our homework,” Engstrand said. “In the end we felt
the IBM deal was the most attractive.”
180 Posten staff will transfer to IBM as part of the deal, which
also extends an existing PC and networks contract by three years.