Royal Mail Blazes a Trail to the Future in Cloud Computing Alliance with Capgemini

Regulatory News:

Royal Mail Group Limited, the national postal service of the United Kingdom, has signed a six-year IT contract with Capgemini UK plc ("Capgemini”), a subsidiary of Capgemini group (Paris:CAP), one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, in a move which aims 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 without the delays and expense of traditional IT.

The contract is for cloud computing, a technology breakthrough which enables IT-on-demand to be piped into an organization as a ‘smart utility’ on a money-saving pay-as-you-go basis. The new technology can be quickly and easily reconfigured to support RMG in launching new business ventures and bringing new services to market as quickly as possible. Areas seen as strong candidates for expansion and diversification at Royal Mail Group (RMG) include services for personal and small or medium business customers, and high-quality, innovative parcel delivery services to meet the needs of the UK’s boom in online shopping. The new technology will also empower RMG to keep pace with the emerging technologies and media being adopted by today’s consumers.

Stuart Curley, Chief Technology Architect of Royal Mail Group said: ‘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. 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 costs, transforming services to customers and supporting new business ventures.’

Capgemini won the contract against competitive bids on the strength of its innovative and creative approach and ability to meet RMG’s security requirements and complex, dynamic business needs.

The deal centres on Capgemini’s Infostructure Transformation Services (ITS) and on Capgemini Immediate, its best of breed cloud computing solution. ITS is a Capgemini global service line which enables clients to address the fundamental design, build and running of their informational structure, or ‘infostructure’. Capgemini Immediate enables an ‘ecosystem’ of third party IT suppliers to provide services seamlessly within the overall solution, with Capgemini acting as services integrator and prime contractor. It also enables the ecosystem to evolve rapidly as RMG’s business develops in the future. Cloud computing removes the need for big investment in new hardware and software licences and allows services to be added or changed in days or weeks rather than the months or years typical of conventional IT. It reduces technology selection risk enabling IT solutions to be explored at high speed and low cost on a pilot basis before selecting the best solution roll-out.

The key benefits of Capgemini’s solution for RMG are:

• enhanced flexibility and scalability, enabling specific services to expand or contract rapidly as levels of demand change
• the ability to integrate its products and services into third-party websites, for example linking travel and leisure websites seamlessly to its foreign currency services
• the power to streamline and personalise many of its services, and capture and update customer profiles based on historic transactions
• the opportunity for smaller IT companies to link to the RMG ecosystem, encouraging innovation and competitiveness, based on open systems standards

Christine Hodgson, Lead of Technology Services Europe (UK and Benelux) and Member of the Group Executive Committee, said: ‘This important contract at RMG marks 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.’

For more information about Capgemini and Sogeti’s Infostructure Transformation Services, please visit:

http://www.capgemini.com/its

About Capgemini

Capgemini, one of the world's foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, enables its clients to transform and perform through technologies. Capgemini provides its clients with insights and capabilities that boost their freedom to achieve superior results through a unique way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM. The Group relies on its global delivery model called Rightshore^®, which aims to get the right balance of the best talent from multiple locations, working as one team to create and deliver the optimum solution for clients. Present in more than 30 countries, Capgemini reported 2009 global revenues of EUR 8.4 billion and employs 90,000 people worldwide.

More information is available at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore^® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini