Computacenter courts law firm

Another multimillion-pound outsourcing deal for corporate reseller

Boosting its blooming outsourcing business, Computacenter has secured another multimillion-pound deal. The firm's existing outsourcing business increased by 40 per cent in 2002.

The £1.5m deal with Scottish commercial law firm Dundas & Wilson will see its 500-strong workforce supported with IT services onsite and remotely by Computacenter.

The law firm wanted a complete rebuild of its IT infrastructure as well as ongoing support.

Dundas & Wilson joins Computacenter's outsourcing customer list, which already includes BT and BAA .

The value-add reseller (Var) supports 100,000 and 10,000 staff respectively at these firms. Computacenter said its outsourcing business is now worth about £145m in the UK.

Tony Cooper, head of services marketing at Computacenter, said: "Not to take anything away from product sales, but we are seeing [a large number of] customers coming to us now to take away business costs as well as improve service levels.

"Companies are outsourcing IT today the way they outsourced maintenance in the past."

Robert Morgan, chief executive of outsourcing consultant Morgan Chambers, said he expects outsourcing revenues to grow by about 20 per cent in the UK this year.

"The market is differentiating between high-risk, high-performance services and generic day-to-day services such as desktops and security.

"But to be the head supplier in an outsourcing deal you must take the financial risks for the customer, and only the big players can do this."

But Morgan added that although fewer deals are being won, smaller suppliers are benefiting from adopting a subcontractor role.

"Many smaller channel players are supporting the big outsourcers, which are parcelling out parts of a deal to them," he said.