CASESTUDY
33
SOMERFIELD OUTSOURCING
REINFORCES RETAIL EXCELLENCE
UK supermarket retailer Somer½ eld operates around 1,000 stores
and employs around 50,000 people. The company focuses on selling
high-quality groceries, convenience and fresh foods in local stores,
offering around 4,000 own-label products including the successful
Simply Value brand. The company, headquartered in Bristol, England,
was acquired by private investors in December 2005.
I
n 2006, Somer½ eld chose to outsource its entire as business-as-usual within comprehensive service
IT operations to Tata Consultancy Services level agreements. TCS was working with Somer½ eld
(TCS), which took on complete responsibility earlier delivering some key projects and this resulted
for service delivery and system performance. The in the relationship maturing into the next level with
With an
aim was to reduce the total operational costs, Somer½ eld outsourcing the entire IT operations to TCS.
aggressive
improve service, allowing Somer½ eld staff to focus And, with an aggressive cost-reduction programme,
cost-reduction
on retailing excellence, and build a relationship that Somer½ eld’s constant challenge is to ½ nd ways to
would contribute to the successful re-launch of make business processes better, simpler and faster.
programme,
the Somer½ eld brand. TCS has been working with TCS helped Somer½ eld streamline a number of
Somer½ eld’s
Somer½ eld for over nine years, delivering several key processes related to application development, enabling
constant
projects, resulting in the relationship maturing into the the company to move many development projects
next level, with Somer½ eld outsourcing the entire IT offshore – and delivering an immediate reduction in
challenge is to
operations to TCS. costs.
½ nd ways to
Services include application support, infrastructure For example, in one case where Somer½ eld was
make business
management, service desk provision, application looking for speci½ c functionality to add to its ½ nancial
development and contract management. The TCS systems, available packaged software was either too
process better,
agreement includes almost all Somer½ eld business expensive or did not meet relevant criteria. TCS was
simpler and
areas, including ½ nance, supply chain, human resources able to develop a new solution that was fully integrated
faster
(HR), logistics and merchandising. With only 20 people with existing applications, and deliver the software at
in the IT department, Somer½ eld personnel focus on a considerably lower cost, and well within the agreed
delivering the business strategy set by the executive timescales.
board and reducing operational costs. “We chose TCS not only because we had been
The seven-year agreement with TCS was to working with them successfully for a number of years,
provide a full range of managed IT services. Under but also because of their expertise in taking on a
the arrangement, TCS operates and supports all contract of this nature and their desire to make the
of Somer½ eld’s key business systems at its Bristol contract work commercially for us as well as them.
headquarters and in its stores, as well as its primary The outsourcing has gone incredibly
data and disaster recovery centres. While Somer½ eld smoothly – we continue to see
continues to own the data, hardware and software improvements to service for our
licences, TCS is responsible for the end-to-end delivery stores and support centre colleagues,”
of IT services and the management of vendors: a total said Oliver Meakin, group strategy
IT outsourcing agreement. and business systems director at
“The scale of offshore support is a distinctive Somer½ eld.
feature of the arrangement,” said Mike Bell, Somer½ eld With full operational support from
IT director. “TCS and Somer½ eld have worked in a very TCS, Somer½ eld expects to make
co-operative and positive way to make this delivery signi½ cant IT cost savings – and by
model work effectively and ef½ ciently. The partnership removing the need to worry about IT
nature of the relationship is a noticeable characteristic, management, the company can focus
with both sides looking for a win-win position. Co- on meeting the strategic priorities of
operation and shared achievement is core to the the business. TCS achieved signi½ cant
process. Getting on as people also helps the situation.” key milestones, thereby helping
With the outsourcing agreement in place, Somer½ eld to evolve into a ‘better,
Somer½ eld’s IT infrastructure needs are now handled simpler and faster’ company.
APRIL/MAY 2009 RETAIL TECHNOLOGY
033 Case Study.indd 33 6/5/09 9:56:21 am
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