Europe's second largest steelmaker Corus has awarded five-year outsourcing contracts worth 26 million to IT services and business consultancy Capgemini UK.
Corus says that it has revenues of over 11 billion and an annual steel production of around 20 million tons. Capgemini is already managing the mainframe computers vital for its business, with a relationship lasting over ten years.
Under the new contracts Capgemini will make the transition of existing IBM and ICL (Fujitsu) mainframe services from Corus sites to Capgemini secure data centres in Bristol and Rotherham.
Capgemini says that it will provide overall service management from the UK, but operational management would be provided from its infrastructure management command centre in Krakow, Poland and additional support from a centre in Mumbai, India.
"Capgemini was able to demonstrate a terrific track record in running mission-critical IT for major multinationals and key government departments," said Dean Freeman, director of the IT Multisourcing programme at Corus.
"They have also done excellent work for Corus over the last ten years and gained deep understanding of our business and IT needs, and all these factors, together with their convincing and cost-effective proposals, made them our first choice in awarding these important contracts," he added.
Capgemini aims to introduce new techniques such as utility computing, virtualisation and adaptive storage, which it says will reduce mainframe running costs as well as deliver enhanced service levels.
The Corus mainframe computers will be used to support core production, supply chain, stockholding, purchasing, sales ordering and invoicing for around 10,000 employees. The steelmaker's manufacturing sites include Llanwern, Motherwell, Port Talbot, Rotherham, Scunthorpe and Teeside.
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