Royal Mail gives Capgemini stamp of approval

Royal Mail has announced a new six-year deal with Capgemini which will see the UK’s national postal service turn to the Cloud once more in a bid to "transform its business and consumer online services, help to reduce its annual website IT costs and support expansion and diversification into a wide range of new web-based business opportunities".

News of the deal comes less than a year after Royal Mail signed a Cloud Computing deal with CSC, which provides 30,000 employees with access to Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). A spokesperson for Capgemini has confirmed the deal will work alongside the CSC contract, and not affect or replace the existing relationship with Royal Mail.

Capgemini will provide Royal Mail Group with its Infostructure Transformation Services (ITS) and Capgemini Immediate, which it's hoped will enable product and services integration into third-party websites, streamline existing services, and enhance flexibility and scalability.

"This contract is great news for our business, our customers and our employees. Once the migration is complete, we will be paying for the IT we need as and when we need it, so that we can for the first time bring our IT costs firmly in line with revenues," explained Stuart Curley, chief technology architect of Royal Mail Group.

"Capgemini's services integrator and ecosystem model can also provide access via a single point of contact to a wide range of reliable and pre-vetted IT providers, services and facilities. I am confident that this new way to buy IT also gives us a sound basis for cutting our ongoing IT cost while transforming services to customers and supporting new business ventures."

Christine Hodgson, senior vice president at Capgemini and member of the Group Executive Committee, said the contract was a “coming-of-age for Cloud Computing in the UK  and gives us the opportunity to show what this exciting new technology can do in terms of speed, cost-effectiveness, scalability and flexibility. We look forward to working with RMG to support its move into new and exciting areas of business.”