A holiday group has calculated that it has cut its IT costs
by almost half by leasing its PCs and software rather than
buying.
Bourne Leisure, which owns Haven, British Holidays, Warner and
Butlins, leases most of its PCs and servers from Lombard Technology
Services under a £1.5m, three-year deal signed last year. It
declined to put an exact figure on the money saved by
leasing.
Bourne began leasing its IT after it bought rival Rank's holiday
division for £700m in 2000. This resulted in duplicated IT systems
and an increase in the number of IT staff to 70.
Simon Crawshaw, head of information services at Bourne Leisure,
said the company drove down costs by paying up-front for some key
applications, such as a booking system, and leasing equipment as
and when it was needed.
Crawshaw added that leasing IT equipment, rather than buying it has
freed up capital. "We would much rather have our capital invested
where it generates a direct return," he said. "Providing a new
swimming pool complex at one of our parks helps to raise the
quality of the guest experience and therefore the revenue
generation potential from the park."
Bourne has continued to use Hewlett-Packard PCs and servers, with
applications from both Microsoft and Novell, after switching
leasing suppliers.
Crawshaw said Lombard offered it flexibility in requesting and
returning equipment.
Key features of a good IT leasing company are the ability to
display flexibility, openness, trust, and to take time to get to
know the business, he added.
Bourne's three-year deal with Lombard is to provide each user with
the latest technology - PCs are equipped with 17-inch flat panel
monitors and the latest PC technical architectures.
The company has 2,500 PCs across its 56 sites in the UK, and it is
currently selecting new PC models. It also leases Microsoft's
Exchange e-mail system, Windows Server 2003, Novell Netware and
Novel Zenworks for managing printing.
According to some analysts, companies can cut their costs by
leasing their computers. Benefits of leasing include not having to
make down-payments; avoiding asset removal and disposal costs;
gaining assistance with asset management and tracking; potentially
lowering monthly payments, because the supplier retains the
residual value of the product at the end of the lease term; and
having simpler budgets.
A number of supplier organisations offer PC leasing contracts,
ranging from IT services companies such as IBM Global Financing,
Dell Financial Services and HP Financial Services, to financial
services organisations such as GE Capital and Royal Bank of
Scotland-owned Lombard Technology Services.