Sainsbury's buys back IT outsourcer
Good housekeeping
Posted in Hardware, 29th January 2004 11:12 GMT
Free whitepaper – Deploying high-density zones in a low-density data center
Sainsbury's is stumping up £553 million in cash and debt to buy its IT outsourcing supplier. The supermarket group says the move is "good housekeeping", bringing IT assets back on the balance sheet and saving the firm £25 million a year.
The company it is buying is called Swan, a subsidiary of Barclays set up to hold the IT assets of Sainsbury's and to act as a vehicle to drive an outsourcing relationship with the IT consulting giant Accenture.
Sainsbury's outsourced its IT operations to Accenture in 2000, initially for seven years. It signed a three-year extension last year.
Chief executive Sir Peter Davis said the company now wanted to create a direct relationship with Accenture. Oh, and just in case anyone should get the wrong idea, he is "pleased with the work that Accenture has completed on our behalf and we have extended our relationship as our new IT infrastructure becomes fully operational."
Sainsbury's will pump the savings into improving its competitive offer.There's a dogfight for customers going on, and every little helps. ®
Free whitepaper – Fundamental Principles of Air Conditioners for Information Technology

Analyst Keynote: The Register Agile Data Center Summit
Seven ways to lower storage costs
Dell PowerEdge M710 with Dell EqualLogic storage vs. HP ProLiant BL685c with HP StorageWorks EVA 4400
Analyst Keynote: The Register Agile Data Center Summit

OpenOffice.org pushes gamers' buttons with OOMouse
Windows 7 kills two thirds of active Vista initiatives
Big Iron, big data, big networks, big problems
HP scores SMB storage hat-trick