Under the terms of the deal, CSC will manage the Prism Alliance, a triumvirate of firms including CSC, outsourcing and consulting firm Xansa Plc, and BT Global Services, which will be responsible for running the company’s data centers, data networks, voice services, desktop computers and over 600 business applications including SAP financials and Siebel CRM systems.

CSC announced last October that it had entered exclusive negotiations to act as the prime contractor on the 10-year project. The deal adds to its $1.6bn 10-year contract win with Motorola signed in March to provide infrastructure services, managing the company’s midrange, desktop, and distributed computing environments globally, with the transfer of some 1,300 employees over to CSC.

The Royal Mail deal will see a total of 1,735 people transfer across to the three firms including 1,470 to CSC, which will manage the Royal Mail’s 42,000 desktop computers, as well as mainframes and IT processes. CSC will then subcontract application management and enterprise systems development work to Xansa, with the transfer of an additional 220 staff, adding to an existing five-year relationship between the firms.

Xansa’s project will be worth 180m pounds ($288m) to the company over 10 years. BT Group meanwhile will take on board some 45 Royal Mail employees who will then provide network services including voice, data, mobile, Internet and managed firewall services over the 10-year duration, in a deal worth 450m pounds ($720m).

Royal Mail, formerly known as Consignia, plans to generate savings of 250m pounds ($400m) over the lifetime of the project.

Gerry Smith, managing director for Royal Mail Services Group, said: We can guarantee these savings based on prices that CSC is giving, by taking over what we are doing now and improving the efficiencies in the desktop, finance, HR and application development and support. Service levels have been built into the deal that will achieve this through incentives not money back.

Guy Hains, CEO for CSC in the UK told ComputerWire that one of the key factors behind the project was providing Royal Mail with a transparent cost structure: They didn’t want any surprises from the contract base. Therefore the tariffs on all services are unit and volume based. While on the project side with Xansa they want speed of service and to make sure the contractors get the job done.

Both parties maintain there are opportunities for expanding the relationship between the Prism Alliance and Royal Mail. Smith at Royal Mail said: The deal represents around 50% of Royal Mail’s annual IT spend, with the other 50% being outsourced to IT services suppliers such as Lockheed Martin. As a result there is an opportunity for CSC and the Prism Alliance to bid on other projects within the group.

Source: Computerwire