Somerfield has transferred its IT helpdesk to India in
the first part of its seven-year £33m offshoring deal withTata Consultancy Services.
The offshore IT helpdesk went live in Bangalore on 2 March. Tata
provided an IT helpdesk trial during February when all the helpdesk
functions were provided by the outsourcer’s employees working in
the UK.
Under the deal with Tata, Somerfield will also offshore its
infrastructure, servers and networks. Somerfield’s 900-plus retail
outlets and eight distribution centres will receive all their IT
services from Tata.
Somerfield will cut some 115 of the 141 IT jobs at its Bristol
IT headquarters once all the services have been offshored to India.
The contract with Tata is one of the first full-service IT
outsourcing contracts signed by a large UK retailer.
Somerfield signed the contract last November, just one year
after its high street rival J Sainsbury announced the UK’s largest
ever IT insourcing when it cancelled its 10-year, £1.7bn contract
with Accenture.
Somerfield shifts UK IT operations to Tata
Retailers turn to wholesale outsourcing
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