John Menzies outsources IT services to Sungard AS in 10-year deal

More cost-effective than doing it in-house, claims John Menzies' Steve Rick

Global airline services and logistics supplier John Menzies plc is outsourcing its IT to services company Sungard Availability Services (AS) because it didn't believe that it had the size or scale to build its own enterprise-class data centre and cloud computing infrastructure.

"Even a company the size of John Menzies does not have the size and scale to cost effectively build and operate enterprise-class data centre and cloud computing infrastructure," Steve Rick, senior vice president of John Menzies, told Computing.

John Menzies had managed its IT services in-house prior to the 10-year, multi-million pound deal, but Rick believes that outsourcing the management of IT services will enable it to be more flexible in order to meet business demand, rather than being locked into long-term capital expenditure on IT.

Rick added that the Sungard AS solution was selected because it could provide John Menzies with the flexibility to scale its IT to meet business demand, without requiring capital investment or a commitment to server or storage volumes.

"Leveraging their investment in data centres, IT infrastructure and service management provides economies of scale and operation which translates into lower running costs for Menzies' IT infrastructure. Sungard AS was also able to meet specific challenges around the global operation of the Menzies business and existing technology and supplier arrangements," said Rick.

Computing asked why the contract had to be 10 years in length as it means that the company could be tied down to one vendor.

Rick responded by explaining that migration between data centres and providers is "a major task" that organisations do not want to undertake regularly.

"The contract contains provisions which ensure the continued competitiveness of the Sungard AS solution, together with the flexibility to scale up or down in line with business demand. Taken together, the stability of a long-term contract such as this provides ongoing benefits to both Menzies and Sungard AS," he said.

Sungard will take on responsibility for John Menzies' IT network and transform its services into cloud-based solutions.

The first phase of the project has already been completed with the successful migration of Menzies' SAP environment recovery services into Sungard's main UK data centre. Future phases include data centre consolidation and a shift to enterprise managed services and network managed services.