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Unipart Automotive drives on Cloud with Getronics

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Abhigna
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LONDON: Getronics, an ICT services group, announced a five-year deal to transition and transform how Unipart Automotive, UK's independent supplier of car parts and workshop consumables, consume and provision IT services in the Getronics cloud.

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Getronics is partnering with Unipart Automotive to implement Workspace as a Service to 2,000 users across 170 sites throughout the UK, making business critical business applications accessible from multiple employee devices as they move to a BYOD environment. As part of the deal, Getronics is migrating four of the company's data centres into the Getronics cloud and replacing legacy desktops with a thin client environment. This is fully supported by the Getronics service desk.

In 2011, Unipart Automotive was acquired by PEC from Unipart Group, which saw H2 Equity Partners take a major stake in the business as part of a major turnaround strategy for the company. In line with this change, Unipart Automotive required a fresh IT strategy that would deliver a flexible, future-proof platform for growth, whilst driving business efficiencies including a 20 per cent target reduction in annual IT spend.

Getronics worked closely with Unipart Automotive to make recommendations on how to address the immediate requirements of the new board's short timeframe. Getronics successfully won the contract due to its understanding of how best to shape and deliver an IT strategy that achieved business transformation through the adoption of new technologies, as the announcement explains.

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Dominic Ruscillo, CIO at Unipart Automotive, comments: "The holy grail for any CIO is to drive competitive advantage through technology. Unipart Automotive's vision is for technology to become an enabler for profitable business growth.

Getronics developed a roadmap that demonstrated how to embrace both emerging and standard technologies to deliver against our objectives and ensure we keep evolving. This not only encompassed the rapid change we needed to undertake following the separation from Unipart Group but beyond as we prepare for growth.

"In six months, Getronics quickly got under the skin of our organisation, helping us to streamline our IT operations, improve productivity and the service we deliver to our customers. We were impressed by the calibre of Getronics, their in depth understanding of our business, our objectives, as well as their agility. In terms of quick wins, the initial savings we're on track to achieve, both in terms of employee productivity and IT spend, are around £1M, already in line with our targeted 20 per cent savings. Standardising our systems has driven increased customer satisfaction and improved end-user experience. We have introduced new devices, systems and services that facilitate flexible working practices."

Next on the agenda for Unipart Automotive and Getronics is a comprehensive Unified Comms programme which comprises a VOIP solution to improve customer experience and optimise sales potential, whilst future-proofing for the creation of virtual call centres longer-term. Also in the plan is the deployment of Microsoft Lync to improve inter-branch communication and collaboration.