Computacenter to manage nearly half of all HBOS desktops

Finance giant HBOS has outsourced the management of 35,000 desktops – nearly half its estate - to IT services provider Computacenter under a three-year contract.

The agreement covers the desktops at HBOS head offices in Edinburgh & West Yorkshire, several call centre locations and Intelligent Finance, which offers a range of banking services over the web.

The contract will see Computacenter become responsible for a range of desktop related services, such as asset management, hardware break-fix maintenance, desk-side and software support, procurement, and the fulfilment activity involved in installations, moves and changes.

Brian Roddick, Programme Delivery Manager at HBOS, commented: “Managing a desktop environment is an essential part of an organisation’s IT function, but the funds and people needed to do this effectively are increasing all the time. By partnering with Computacenter, we can leverage its skills and resources to enhance the service we provide to our users, and develop a more cost-effective desktop infrastructure.”

The agreement comes nearly 18 months after Halifax and Bank of Scotland merged to create the HBOS Group, which provides the whole range of consumer and corporate financial services through five divisions.

Andy Purvis, Computacenter's Director of Scotland, commented: "Companies are increasingly looking to reduce the costs and complexities associated with managing their IT infrastructures. Outsourcing day-to-day responsibility for a distributed infrastructure to a trusted partner enables organisations to concentrate their internal resources on delivering strategic IT projects. HBOS will also benefit from Computacenter’s investment in best-of breed technology which helps streamline desktop management by enabling processes such as remote software distribution and automated PC imaging.”

Computacenter is a leading managed services provider in the UK. For example, the company manages 100,000 desktops for BT across the UK in what is understood to be Europe’s largest desktop outsourcing contract , and is responsible for providing managed desktop and server services for THUS.

“Desktops are an important tool for communicating with our customers, so it is essential that they are professionally managed and implemented. Computacenter has a proven track record in delivering managed desktop services o organisations across the UK,” added Roddick.

The contract includes the transfer of a number of staff under TUPE regulations from HBOS, Getronics and IBM as part of the award of this business.