Fujitsu Services seals £500m Reuters outsourcing gig
Fujitsu Services has won a major contract with Reuters worldwide. Under the 10-year deal, which is valued at around £500m, Fujitsu will provide IT services, such as desktop PC maintenance and email services, for 17,500 Reuters employees in more than 100 countries. In addition, more than 300 Reuters staff will transfer to Fujitsu …
As a consultant I have worked for a fair few companies with out sourcing deals, and twice where Fujitsu had won the contract. Without exception the customers have been left disappointed and frustrated with the level of service received. Yet this seams to be hidden from the people who sign the contracts. Or are the jollies that good?
In my experience anyway. The main issue generally seems to be that when customers buy the service, they really don't know what they are buying. It becomes evident a few days into the new regime. Need a password changing? You'll have to phone Kuala Lumpur, navigate through a six layer menu and then have to explain your requirement. Want to buy some new software? Create a requisition order, and you'll get a response in six weeks. Hardware? Add another month. There's little wonder that customers become dissatisfied, but in the end that's what they're paying for: globalisation and economies of scale are what makes outsourcing 'competitive'. The bottom line doesn't account for the time wasted in adopting these companies' methods.
Yes, I do have that t-shirt. Several of them.
Really..? Name them! I think that as you may have worked on the outsourcing deals and didn’t win them, you may just be having a pop at Fujitsu. From my knowledge of the company and outsourcing contracts that have been won by them, I can only think of one that was lost after a bad bid and integration. The remainder are all going strong with resigning and expansion to the original contracts.
I hope that Fujitsu are as good as they claim, we are about to switch PC renewal program management to them.
I suspect your knowledge is somewhat limited - alternatively you are a Fujitsu employee.
I work for a company who performs outsourcing and have worked for others who carry out similar activities.
I have to agree with the comments that most of these deals are not worth the paper they are written on, there is always an "out" in the contract because a particular item/task wasn't documented.
Unless the company is willing to integrate with the business (Fujitsu - hmm) then keep it in house alternatively ensure the outsourcing contract is flexible (without massive penalty) and includes rebates for lack of performance.
That's my tuppence worth.
As ex-Reuters I can attest that for the vast majority of the 17k employees this will not mean much, but for the 1700 journalists I would expect problems. Unless of course this contract only applies to IT (read "back office"). The "editorial" system and the "production" systems are what count anyway, they produce and deliver what the customer buys, so lets hope that Reuters knows the difference and deals with it accordingly.
On a separate note, it's nice to see Dave Lister get a job after all that time in space.
Beck
Do you work for Fujitsu in their bid team, it sounds like it. As for naming past contracts, I think not.
I have never been part of or competed with a Fujitsu bit.
Also if you note from my original comment I suggested a disconnect between customers and the decision makers which allows for the level of resigning contracts. However I have to agree that most if not all outsourcing deals have the same problems, just in this case the story is about Fujitsu.
