Balfour Beatty Signs 5-Year Multi-Million Pound Contract With Fujitsu

Balfour Beatty plc, a provider of
professional services, construction services, support services and
infrastructure investments, has enlisted Fujitsu
Ltd.

The new partnership signals a move by the organisation to
invest in technology to support its wider business strategy of improved
efficiency, customer centricity and growth – and will enable the business and
its customers to operate in a much more informed, flexible and agile way. The
project with Fujitsu creates a standardised IT
infrastructure for Balfour Beatty’s UK business, while driving down IT costs.

Under the terms of the multi-million pound, five-year contract, Fujitsu will
reportedly host and manage the company’s data in a shared storage environment,
using a combination of physical and cloud-based virtual data centres. It will
also provide desktop services and support for 14,000 users in the UK, across
approximately 450 permanent locations and 450 temporary sites – supported by
Fujitsu hardware. This move will see Balfour Beatty’s employees use
standardised equipment and also enjoy a much smoother user experience for
support, with much faster response times.

Richard Bull, executive director end user services, Fujitsu UK and Ireland,
commented: "The objective here is to
create an agile and scalable IT environment, that provides Balfour Beatty with
the ability to flex according to its customers’ requirements, as well as
helping to reduce IT costs. It is also giving Balfour Beatty the opportunity to
truly innovate its business and to future proof for trends such as Bring Your
Own Device. We are confident that we’ll achieve that and are looking forward to
a long and successful partnership with Balfour Beatty."

Balfour Beatty’s complex and diverse IT estate currently comprises over 1,500
servers in the UK, spread across 10 data rooms. The consolidation and
rationalisation of this estate into Fujitsu’s North and South London data
centres will drive down costs and reduce Balfour Beatty’s energy consumption.
Furthermore, the organisation is also planning to rationalise the number of
apps it uses, which currently stands at around 5,500.

All future end user devices will be based on Fujitsu technology- the standard
laptop machine will be based on the Fujitsu LIFEBOOK series whilst the standard
desktop offering will be delivered by the ESPRIMO range. In the data centres
Fujitsu’s PRIMERGY servers will be utilised and supported by its ETERNUS
enterprise storage range.

The project will involve TUPE transfers for a total of 67 Balfour Beatty
employees into Fujitsu. Fujitsu’s focus on nurturing its people and harnessing
talent was appealing to Balfour Beatty, particularly with its proven staff
retention rates. The transfer and transform programme is expected to be carried
out over 18 months and is currently in its design phase.