Introduction
United Kingdom is a world leader in the field of Information technology services.
Information technologies have had a great impact on the way in which information is gathered and processed, but their impact on the structure of the organizations has been rather limited.
By the end of the twentieth century, progress in information technology (IT) had become the strongest and most pervasive force for strategic change in businesses throughout the world.[1]
This paper analyzes the strategic development «Computacenter, plc.» Computacenter is Europe’s leading independent provider of IT infrastructure services.
Computacenter plc is the parent company of a group of European companies which provide computer services to public and private sector customers. Despite the spelling of the word «center», it is a UK company based in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.[2]
The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
Set up by British Harvard graduates Philip Hulme and Peter Ogden in 1981, who are both still involved in the group's management.
Computacenter today has over 10,000 employees across Europe and Group revenues of over £2.5 billion.[3]
The mission of the company
«To deliver IT services and solutions that enables our customers to achieve their goals».[4]
The strategy of the company
«Our strategy is to achieve long-term earnings growth. To help measure our success, we have five key strategic initiatives against which to benchmark our performance».[5]
The main activity falls into the broad categories:
v Outsourcing:
- Infrastructure management
- Application management
- Service desk
- IT Security
- Managed Hosting
- Dusaster recovery
- Asset management
v Support and Maintenance:
- IMAC
- Resources on Demand
- Datacenter maintenance
v Datacentre Technology Optimisation:
- Datacentre Current State Assessment
- Infrastructure Discovery and Analysis
- Data Classification and Tiering
- Server and Storage Virtualisation
- Server and Storage Consolidation
- Software Optimisation
v Commercial Solutions:
- Supplier Management and Rationalisation
- Web shop and e-Commerce Integration
- Advanced Order Management
- Leasing and Technology Finance
- Capacity on Demand and Utility Infrastructure
Computacenter is ISO 9001:2000 certified by the British Standards Institution. The ISO standard provides the framework that underpins the 'Service Excellence' commitment and ethos of the organization.[6]
Computacenter has subsidiaries in several countries: United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands, and its partner network extending its coverage to over 120 countries worldwide.
The main customers include: Deutsche Bank, Logica, Marks & Spencer, British Telecom, BAA, Reuters, Unipart, Channel 4, BMW Group, EDF.
Key metrics 2009:
Group revenue £2.50 billion (2008: £2.56 billion)
Profit before tax £54.2 million (2008: £43.1 million)
Earnings per share 27.7 pence (2008: 21.0 pence)
Group annual services contract base grew to £503.6 million, at constant currency
There were two successful acquisitions during the year: Thesaurus Computer Services in UK and become in Germany.
Strategic Corporate Development History
History of Computacenter
| The company received ‘Daimler Supplier Award 2009’ Computacenter won contract with Cisco Enterprise Partner Computacenter receives IBM Certification for Dynamic Infrastructure Skills | |
| Computacenter services contract base grew over 9% to £503.6mln Computacenter achieved a net profit of £40mln | |
| Computacenter won contract with Marks & Spencer and BMW Group, which increased contract base 7.5% | |
| The company won the five year contact with the largest provider of fixed telephony in the UK «British Telecom». Contract worth £200mln | |
| The company extended their service facilities with different service desk capabilities in Spain and South Africa through the acquisition of Digica Ltd. | |
| Services business continues to grow across Europe. The company won a five year contract with Finanz Informatik GmbH & Co. KG in Germany, which provides IT services to the banking institutions. | |
| The acquisition with GE CompuNet in Germany and GE Capital IT Solutions Austria The company won outsourcing contracts. A five-year contract with Abbey, the main point of which is to manage their desktop infrastructure. This contract valued at £70 mln. A three-year contract with HBOS, the aim of which to manage 35,000 desktops, it’s | |
| There was launched the new Solution Centre – it was one of the first facility in the UK to offer multi-vendor proof of concept and testing services. The company became Sun's Service Partner of the Year. In this year Computacenter became 'Service Partner of the Year 2001' at the Sun Partner Awards ceremony Computacenter won top Enterprise Accreditation. In this year Computacenter became the first infrastructure services partner to be awarded a new Enterprise Service Delivery Partner (ESDP) by Compaq. | |
| Sun awarded Computacenter its Breakthrough Partner of the Year award for 2000. The company is awarded BMC's EMEA Partner of the Year for BMC's 2001. There was the acquisition with GECITS UK & French business | |
| Computacenter won the 'FMCG and Capital Goods Distributor' of the year | |
| Computacenter renewed its contract with British telecom for the next three years Computacenter Belgium was established and acquired RDC, a UK-based IT disposal services company | |
| The company successfully floated on the London Stock Exchange. The leading UK company, Proshar, awarded Computacenter as «Best Involvement and Innovation for Employee Share Ownership» in the United Kingdom | |
| Computacenter UK revenues exceed £1 billion The company was voted European Reseller of the UK, and the most innovative approach to customer support in Europe | |
| Computacenter achieved a UK turnover of £804,5mln with net profit of £25mln. The company staff levels have increased by 40% from 1,510 to 2,099 and supplies over 245,000 PCs over the year in the UK. | |
| Computacenter achieved a turnover of £500 mln, and employs approx. 1500 people and won one of the largest desktop contract with British Telecom. Computacenter France became a wholly owned subsidiary of Computacenter. |
Despite a partial slow-down in the UK economy, demand for IT systems and services remained strong in 90’s.
The Comptacenter 's success is the direct result of a strategy of sustained high investment in the development of the services capability. The state-of-the-art facility was intended to be the source of significant competitive advantage.
Computacenter commercial success depends on the quality of the service and that, in turn, depends on the quality, training, and motivation of the staff.
Computacenter continued to invest across all of its businesses, consolidating its position as the leading supplier of distributed IT and related services to the European corporate and public sector marketplace. During 15 years Computacenter won a number of different contracts with major players if IT industry in Europe.
I want to point out that there were a big number of different acquisitions due to Computacenter became the most significant provider of IT infrastructure products and services in the United Kingdom and in Europe. The focus clearly was and remains on investing for growth in Computacenter existing businesses. Much of Computacenter’s growth was due to expanding relationships with existing long-term corporate customers. The quality of service that they deliver to both new and existing customers is the overriding factor in the success of the business.
Computacenter’s ability to deliver value through its entire range of services, combined with e-commerce capability, constitutes a significant competitive advantage. All things considered, it can be concluded that Computacenter followed the same strategy during the 15 years. During this period Computacenter made further progress in strategic initiatives aimed at ensuring long-term earnings growth.