Computeraid measures up for Clarks

Shoe giant Clarks International is spending three million pounds on IT support over the next two years to improve customer service and infrastructure.

It has signed an outsourcing deal with Computeraid Services worth £1.5 million a year. The original contract was due to expire at the end of next year, but has now been extended until 2004 because of benefits already delivered.

Computeraid will be responsible for supporting Clarks' large Windows NTdomain and electronic point of sale (Epos) systems in 750 branches. It will also maintain and service 1,200 PCs, back office servers and peripherals such as scanners and printers.

By monitoring systems and providing reports, it has reduced the time taken to fix faulty equipment and reduced disruption to business. Clarks has a pure Internet protocol (IP) network, which allows 80% of problems to be resolved remotely.

Such tools have helped to increased levels of customer satisfaction andsales, says Alistair Smith, retail service manager at Clarks.

'You have to look at what's important to your business: what was important to us was fix times. It can be a little as 10 minutes now, which is a vast improvement. Now if an entire system goes down in one of our flagship stores like Oxford Street, we can have it up and running again in four hours,' said Smith.

But he warns other users that taking the outsourcing route does not meanThat internal company responsibilities can be neglected.

'Don't under-resource internally because you can't expect the contract to run byitself. It needs somebody dedicated to managing the company's interests.It's dangerous to ignore that and that's when relationship breaks down.'

Clarks International made a strategic decision to outsource all non-coreactivities in 1996 because it believed the industry had radically changedthe company and it needed to adjust to keep pace.