Computacenter launches £30m Shared Services Factory

Computacenter (CC) Services has invested £30m to create a new operating model for the way it delivers IT services, which it has claimed will significantly reduce client costs.

Developed over the past 18 months, the Shared Services Factory (SSF) was unveiled last week and is described by CC as “a library of re-usable tools”. CC has claimed to have captured the key elements of the most successful projects and used them to create a flexible set of standards that can be applied consistently across relevant future initiatives.

Neil Muller, director of managed services at CC Services, told CRN: “There will be a continual investment as SSF evolves and it will deliver more value to end-users. This investment is driven by a need to deliver a more consistent approach.

“Organisations such as CC have focused on driving down costs and improving service, but customers want more. We will also focus on continuous improvement and innovation and the way relationships are managed.”

Alastair Edwards, senior analyst at Canalys, said: “The challenge for the channel has always been how to make services a repeatable business. CC looks like it is going some way to achieving this. But it’s also about de-mystifing services for the end-user by reducing complexity. Other services companies often rely on this complexity for their margins, but CC is challenging this approach.”

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