Corus extends IT contract with Capgemini

Steel maker Corus has extended its IT contract with Capgemini in a £26m deal.

Corus has used Capgemini for the last ten years, and the five-year contract extension runs until 2013.

Under the deal, Capgemini will continue to manage the mainframe computers that support the core production, supply chain, stock holding, purchasing, sales ordering and invoicing activities at the main Corus UK manufacturing sites, including Llanwern, Motherwell, Port Talbot, Rotherham, Scunthorpe and Teesside.

Capgemini will deploy its Rightshore strategy, which makes its global resources available to UK customers. Capgemini teams in the UK, Poland and India will work to enhance service levels for the 10,000 Corus UK employees who rely on the mainframe systems in their daily work.

The new contracts involve the transition of existing IBM and ICL (Fujitsu) mainframe services from Corus sites to Capgemini secure data centres in Bristol and Rotherham, and a technical refresh of the infrastructure.

Capgemini will provide overall service management from the UK, with operational management provided from its infrastructure management command centre in Krakow, Poland and additional technical support from a Capgemini centre in Mumbai, India.

Bruno Laquet, chief information officer at Corus, said, "The quality and efficiency of our mainframe systems is of key importance to our customers and employees, in ensuring that we manufacture and deliver the right products with the right quality at the right time.

By introducing techniques such as utility computing, virtualisation and adaptive storage, Capgemini said it aims to significantly cut mainframe running costs, and deliver enhanced service levels.