UK outsourcing contracts give SIs sales boost

British outsourcing contracts have helped to dramatically increase sales of the top 10 systems integrators, such as EDS and Cap Gemini, by 29 per cent to #4.06 billion in the UK last year.

EDS held on to its top slot as the largest supplier of computer services in the UK, growing its turnover by 46 per cent to #765 million, thanks to major contracts with organisations including Rolls Royce, Airtours and the Inland Revenue.

In a survey published by System House, industry analyst and System House publisher Richard Holway said: ?In previous years, acquisitions have been the main reason for the high growth rates of the larger companies. The only major acquisition of UK revenues in 1996 was IBM?s acquisition of Data Sciences.

?The principal reason for such high growth is undoubtedly because these larger companies have been awarded the lion?s share of new outsour-cing contracts.?

Providers of software and computing services in the UK which were not involved in outsourcing ? such as GEC Marconi, Microsoft and Oracle ? had the lowest growth rates.

Other top 10 integrators included IBM, Fujitsu/ICL, Sema Group, Anderson Consulting and Computer Scien-ces Corporation.