DXC cuts the ribbon on London innovation centre

DXC has cut the ribbon on its innovation centre in central London aiming to use the facility as a location to bring in other partners and solve customer digital transformation problems.

The firm is keen to take a collaborative approach and is open minded about working with vendors, SIs and other channel partners that can come in with the skills needed to meet the needs of users.

The firm has been expanding innovation centres across the globe, usually based close to key customers in capital cities, and officially launched the London offering this afternoon.

Sukhi Gill, vp and CTO UKIIMEA at DXC Technology, said that it was open minded about who it would work with and was keen to answer customer questions with the best expertise available.

"The centre is a collaboration facility for customers and partners to expand ideas and help customers with their digital strategy," he added "We pick a specific problem and then reach out to partners."

He added that the pressure on partners that did not develop their expertise around certain technologies and vertical markets was that they would struggle to become part of a wider ecosystem: "What partners end up with is just a catalogue of stuff to sell".

DXC is aiming to make sure that the innovation centre becomes more than just a brainstorming talking shop and intends producing solutions that can be taken out to solve a number of customer digital transformation challenges.

"Customer are not looking for pilots they want things that are real deliverables," he said that it was keen to make solutions that would have more than a single application, "We don't want it to be one of a kind but it has got to be the first of a kind".

Sam Johnston, global director of DXC Labs, said that it was developing numerous examples of areas it had cracked problems, ranging from healthcare, transport, banking and motor sport.

"We have built a global network of innovation centres and we have opened London and have broken ground on our centre in Washington and we will then look towards Zurich or Germany to have a network of physical facilities," he said.