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• 2008

OMV signs major desktop services agreement with S&T

Vienna-based IT provider to support comprehensive services in 14 European countries

Relying on an expert partner
The desktop services contract allows OMV Global Solutions to reduce IT costs and upgrade enterprise-wide standards while freeing up resources for its core business activities. “We are very pleased to have found a partner who is capable of supporting so many different services effectively at so many of our sites,” said Christian Worlicek, Department Manager of OMV Global Solutions Personal Systems. “Cooperating with S&T in this important part of our IT will not only make the management easier and help us to optimize our cost structure, it will also help us to ensure that state-of-the-art communications technology is in use across the entire company.”

According to Christian Rosner, CEO of S&T, this ranks as one of the most important contracts ever signed by S&T and is of great strategic importance to both companies. “Utilities have been an area of core competence for S&T for many years and we look forward to leveraging our unique experience in the area of managed services for OMV,” Rosner said. In signing the contract for comprehensive business services and processes, S&T won out over a number of leading competitors.

As part of the deal, S&T will use its extensive IT expertise to design, develop and implement the necessary solutions, covering both hard- and software, during the agreement’s initial four-year run. The contract foresees provision of a range of state-of-the-art services, including consulting for rollout activities, local field services, service desks designed to provide local-language assistance, implementation and maintenance of international standards, monitoring and fine-tuning of security policies, centralized asset and change management, and cost and performance controlling. The large number of processes and users involved will allow S&T to use its full range of business intelligence know-how, from design and implementation to consulting and service management.

Selective outsourcing gains in popularity
As studies show, demand for managed services is increasing as more and more businesses realize that by outsourcing costly, time-consuming IT tasks, they can devote their own resources to activities that are of greater strategic importance. This allows them to optimize their business processes and, as a result, enhances overall productivity. Although larger companies generally stand to reap the greatest benefits, managed services often pay off for smaller organizations as well. By outsourcing IT networks or telecommunications to an external partner, they can also benefit from the lower costs and higher quality made possible by managed services.

The research institute Ovum projects that the global market for managed services will amount to €31 billion by 2009, with Europe accounting for more than one-third of this volume. A study recently conducted by Techconsult, another leading market researcher, revealed that one in three Austrian companies is actively interested in managed services.