ICL Plc has spun off yet another autonomous services company, creating Workplace Technologies Ltd out of its ITCS division to provide consultancy services aimed at increasing productivity in the workplace. ICL, like Digital Equipment Corp, has been in the services game for 30-odd years, but is trying now to up the profile of this side of the business due to shrinking hardware margins. So ICL has taken the original services offered by ICTS, such as designing computing rooms and supplying proprietary cabling, and added a new range. These include network integration; property and office design; consultancy on how to improve office environments, computer rooms and switch rooms in relation to temperature, ventilation, lighting, power supply, fire detection and prevention as well as security, and software provision so that management can monitor and manage the workplace better. Like the Digital Consulting business unit, ICTS formerly took on work only when asked to do so by the parent company’s customers. Now both operations are out in the market touting for trade, emphasising their independence from their parent companies, and insisting on their open, multi-vendor stance. As with ICL’s new training company Peritas, Workplace Technologies is aiming to generate the majority of its revenue from non-ICL customers, and hopes to increase its projected 1992 turnover of ?24m to ?60m by 1996. To do so, it intends developing partnerships with suppliers and third party vendors to expand its range of products and services. A deal has been struck already with ICL’s 50%-owned computer maintenance company Sorbus Ltd to promote Workplace Technologies services to its own customer base. In a similar vein to DEC’s Management Counsel, Workplace Technologies claims to take an holistic approach to solving problems in the office. Management Counsel says its mission is to streamline business procedures, create a flexible organisational structure to maximise employee and information technology output, and to work out how a company can deliver the best service possible to its customers. Workplace Technologies puts more emphasis on creating an ergonomically sound work environment, but likewise asserts the need to build a flexible business culture that can adapt to shifting work patterns, and cope with both internal and external change. Its stated aim is to harmonise the needs of staff with those of information technology within a suitable work environment. According to Ken Jenkins, business development manager at Workplace Technologies, the main edge the new firm has over its competitors is that instead of simply offering airy-fairy concepts, it looks at practical solutions to meet a customer’s needs from day one.
