Schneider awards Capgemini £1bn outsourcing deal

Schneider Electric has awarded Capgemini a £1bn-plus outsourcing contract to take over its IT department and roll out a worldwide SAP-based business systems platform.

Schneider, which provides electronic control systems to utility suppliers and enterprises, has awarded Capgemini a 10-year contract that will see 800 IT staff transfer to Capgemini around the world from January next year.

Almost half of these transfers will take place in France where Schneider has its headquarters, while the others will be spread across the UK, other European countries, North America and the Asia Pacific region.

Schneider said Capgemini had been brought in to ensure "a controlled evolution of the company's applications systems, the continuity of current operations and an optimisation of cost management".

Capgemini is not making its SAP roll-out plans public at this stage. Francois Dauriat, an analyst at Ovum, said, "Capgemini's strengths in SAP integration are well known. The company ranks among the leading players in this field, along with the two other contract bidders Accenture and IBM.

"As with Accenture's recent deal at Barclays, the 'social engineering' side of the deal was key. The trade unions reportedly feared a possible overlap with Capgemini staff, and so initially favoured a contract with Accenture. But this problem was turned around successfully."