The contract will see Atos provide first and second line support for the entire IT infrastructure of the Bolton-based company. This will include the back office SAP systems for sales, production planning, quality management, purchasing, finance and human resources.

Warburtons hopes that consolidating all helpdesk and SAP support with one provider will result in reduced costs, improved services and increased efficiency.

Atos will also install an online IT support module, enabling the company to report and monitor general IT enquiries.

Damien Ghee, IT and programme director at Warburtons, said: With its well-established SAP practice and its strong track record of working in the CPG industry, we believe that Atos Origin will help us both improve our helpdesk services and ensure that we get the best value from our SAP systems. We have been particularly impressed with the concept of CPG Centre of Expertise and believe that we can potentially benefit from the innovative solutions developed by the team of experts based there.

The Atos SAP Centre of Excellence for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) will enable the company to provide Warburtons with strategic advice in an attempt to enhance the SAP structure at the company. It is hoped this will enable Warburtons to improve the management of its critical business issues such as regulatory demands and bringing new products to market faster.