HP and OCSL bag Ted Baker contract win

Vendor and reseller secure a seven year IT deal with clothing retailer Ted Baker

OCSL and HP have won a contract to provide clothing firm Ted Baker with back-office operations over the next seven years.

The deal, for an undisclosed amount, will see HP deliver managed services, managing Ted Baker's infrastructure, operating system and database, while OCSL will implement a disaster-tolerant HP converged infrastructure.

Jane Ayres, head of marketing at OCSL, which is an HP Platinum Partner, said the deal was a "great example of OCSL's HP-centric model".

Ayres also commented that OCSL's partnership with HP has been critical to the continued growth of the firm.

"We have partnered with HP for 20 years, and in that time we have seen a huge amount of change, but I feel at the moment HP's product portfolio is the strongest it has ever been under the new leadership of Andy Isherwood and obviously with what Meg Whitman has been doing in the US."

According to Ayres, the deal with Ted Baker was won with HP and OCSL working in collaboration, as well as the reseller working with other parties such as Microsoft and PwC.

"That sets the solution apart from some others because it really was about all of us collaborating," Ayres said.

Dustan Steer, IT director at Ted Baker, said: "This is a major business transformation programme, so we selected strong, long-term partners with experience of major ERP projects. HP and OCSL were able to bring together all the necessary hardware, software and SLA-based services, and worked closely with us to understand exactly what was needed to make such a complex project successful."