Whitbread toasts CSC with £50m contract

UK leisure group Whitbread has signed a £50m contract to outsource all its IT systems to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC).

The seven-year contract will see 104 Whitbread employees move across to the outsourcing giant, which will manage all of Whitbread's central information systems, including its midrange and mainframe services.

Ivor Camavan, vice president of CSC, said the management of all 2,250 desktops would be done on a remote basis.

He said: "Our Unity [desktop management] service is based on Computer Associates' Unicenter package, so all desktop support can be done remotely via a call centre. We can take users through any problems on a step-by-step basis."

Camavan added that the two companies had worked together for the past two years on company logistics before this contract was awarded.

CSC will also provide training and network monitoring. It will also manage the third party partnerships Whitbread has with resellers and suppliers.

Whitbread will retain up to ten IT staff members to work on its IT strategy.

A Whitbread spokesman said: "We made the move to make the most effective use of technology and our resources."