Sainsbury's looks to halve costs by using Accenture, BT and co

Sainsbury's is planning on reducing the cost of its IT expenditure by 50 per cent year-on-year through an outsourcing agreement.

The UK supermarket has awarded a contract to a consortium led by Accenture and including BT in a four-year deal.

The deal falls into the increasingly common category of 'multisourcing', where a user has a relationship with several companies handling its IT and communications rather than a lead vendor that subcontracts.

BT has put in place a new network - the largest MPLS-based roll out in the UK, the telco claims - across over 400 Sainsbury sites. The consortium will also replace all the supermarket's IT systems over the length of the contract.

Richard Holway, director at the Ovum Holway research group, said decreasing spend on IT will be a trend across most major IT users this year and thereafter, even when the wider economic climate improves.

We will be bringing you more on this contract and BT's current push into outsourcing tomorrow.