Fujitsu to spend $A15 million to standardise services

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 21 November 2007 05:29

IT Industry - Strategy

Fujitsu Australia intends to invest $A15 million during the next 12 months on a project to standardise the services it offers customers.

The rationale is based on that of the Japanese car industry, according to Peter McFarlane, executive general manager of the company's infrastructure services division. "Like motor vehicles, IT solutions share about 80 per cent functionality in common, providing an opportunity for us to save our clients time and money by standardising on those components, our methodologies and delivery processes."

McFarlane said this approach will allow the company to guarantee superior performance and reliability to reduce the risk associated with projects.  "At the same time we will free up resources to focus our innovation capabilities on the 20 per cent of a solution that represents a client's unique business requirements and the key opportunity for differentiation," he explained.
 
The first fruit of the program will be a desktop managed service for Windows Vista.

CEO Rod Vawdrey foreshadowed further investments in the area. "We are really just beginning the process of embedding this approach across our organisation and communicating the benefits to customers. While $15 million is a large commitment by any standards, we appreciate that the process of transforming our entire business to epitomise the TRIOLE philosophy will not happen overnight." (TRIOLE is Fujitsu's name for its industrialised infrastructure and services process.)

"We will invest whatever resources are necessary to accomplish our vision to industrialise the delivery of IT services as a major step forward for this industry and one that will deliver enormous opportunities both for us and our clients."

TRIOLE was launched by Fujitsu Australia in November 2006. At the time, the company claimed it would provide up to 30 percent greater efficiency, continuity and agility from IT services and solutions.

It is hard to see how outsourcing can deliver significant savings without some form of standardisation. If an outsourcer simply continues to operate the way its client used to, the only economies are those that accrue from scale, such as being able to negotiate more aggressively with suppliers, or being able to more fully utilise the time of specialist staff.

Yet a 'one size fits all' strategy is not particularly attractive to clients, who generally have particular needs due to the nature of the industry in which they operate or a 'secret sauce' that sets them apart from competitors.

Fujitsu's approach appears to provide a balance between standardisation and flexibility.